Shock Of Trauma Triggers Amnesia

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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - While amnesia is thought to be more likely to occur on a soap opera than in real life, a British neurologist reports that traumatic events can indeed cause a bout of memory loss.

How does he know? Well, from first-hand experience, according to Dr. Peter Harvey, an emeritus consultant neurologist to the Royal Free Hospital in London, UK. Speeding down the highway on a rainy day, Harvey narrowly missed a seven-car pileup, skidding and maneuvering his way onto the side of the highway.

During this traumatic event, Harvey had the ``absolute conviction that I was about to die,'' he notes in a letter published in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry. Without ever hitting another car, his head, or injuring himself in anyway, the neurologist realized that there were gaps in his memory of the incident. He did not remember exactly how he avoided the other cars or ended up on
the grass embankment. At the same time, some memories were crystal clear, down to what a passenger in another car was wearing and the type of toy dangling in the rear window. And he does remember thinking that he would have to clean his shoes after walking on the thick mud surrounding his vehicle.

The British neurologist concludes that even in the absence of any injury, the psychological shock of an event can result in a double emotional whammy. The individual can experience a loss of memory of the event while having a vivid recollection of certain details. Harvey had not given much prior credence to the possibility of what is known as post-traumatic amnesia occurring without a physical component--such as being briefly knocked unconscious--until he experienced it himself.

``Now, 6 months later, some of the memories are beginning to fade,'' he writes. However, those that are still the most vivid concern smaller details--such as the mud on his shoes--rather than the ``conviction of impending death.'' More work needs to be done to understand the complex interaction between neurological and emotional effects on memory, according to Dr..Kopelman M.D, of St. Thomas's Hospital in London, who wrote an editorial in the journal. Kopelman notes that lists of amnesia-inducing events include war, child abuse and crimes of passion--but often leave out road traffic accidents. He points out that the facts of Harvey's experience actually fall somewhere between amnesia that typically results from head injury and classic post-traumatic stress disorder, in which vivid memories of a traumatic event persist and
disrupt daily life.

By exploring the particulars of Harvey's story, Kopelman suggests that perhaps renewed attention will be paid to the role emotion plays in trauma or accident.

SOURCE: Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry 2000;69:431