The Japanese journal of neuropsychology

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ArticleTitle	A case of functional retrograde amnesia
Language	J
AuthorList	Paeksoon Park, Yoshitaka Ohigashi
Affiliation	Graduate School of Human and Environmental Studies, Kyoto University
Publication	Japanese Journal of Neuropsychology: 26 (3), 219-230, 2010
Received	Jun 10, 2009
Accepted	Oct 19, 2009
Abstract	Autonoetic consciousness (AC) is one of the important concepts in episodic memory. It is considered that the absence of AC is a essential aspect of deficits in amnesia. For this reason, the difficulty of autobiographical memory retrieval in functional retrograde amnesia (FRA), which is a common cognitive process in these patients, might relate to the absence of AC. However, there has been little study about that because of the difficulty of memory retrieval itself. In the present paper, we report on a case of FRA, who retained a part of his own identity and semantic memory soon after onset. The vividness-rating task about pre-onset autobiographical memory retrieval was administered to assess the traits of memory. The patient recalled parts of his autobiographical memory and in these ratings of vividness, there's almost no difference with control group. Results suggest the possibility that the patient might retain at least a part of the entity of AC for pre-onset autobiographical memory.
Keywords	autonoetic consciousness, functional retrograde amnesia, autobiographical memory, episodic memory