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amnesia

n. partial or complete loss of memory. Either temporary or permanent, it may be due to physiological factors such as injury or disease (organic amnesia), to substance use (drug-induced amnesia), or to psychological factors such as a traumatic experience (see dissociative amnesia). A disturbance in memory marked by inability to learn new information is called anterograde amnesia, and one marked by inability to recall previously learned information or past events is called retrograde amnesia. When severe enough to interfere markedly with social or occupational functioning or to represent a significant decline from a previous level of functioning, the memory loss is known as amnestic disorder. —amnesiac adj., n. —amnesic or amnestic adj.

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Psychology term of the day

March 29th 2024

allocortex

allocortex

n. those regions of the cerebral cortex that are phylogenetically older and have fewer than six main layers of cells. The allocortex is involved primarily in olfactory functions and limbic functions related to memory and emotion, and it comprises the three-layered archicortex (or archipallium), found mostly in the hippocampus, and the four- or five-layered paleocortex (or paleopallium), found mostly in the pyriform area and parahippocampal gyrus. Compare neocortex.