In the US state of Massachusetts, doctors are trying to determine why patients are en masse falling ill with this type of memory impairment, such as anterograde amnesia. This type of amnesia is characterized by the fact that the patient forgets only those events that occur after the onset of the disease.
Over the past four years, local doctors have diagnosed fourteen compatriots with this diagnosis, a record for the United States. Nine patients were admitted to hospitals unconscious and experienced blackouts after waking up there. The other five people began to suffer from anterograde amnesia while still at home and were taken to hospitals by relatives.
Brain scans of the patients showed that each of them had disturbances in blood flow in the hippocampus, the area of the brain responsible for memory. However, the reasons for such violations have not yet been found by specialists. Doctors note that acute memory loss associated with impaired blood flow is extremely rare, and why in Massachusetts in recent years this condition was found in fourteen people at once is a real mystery.
All patients are connected by the fact that they are relatively young (their age ranges from nineteen to fifty-two years), do not abuse alcohol, hallucinogens or drugs. Medical investigation into this matter continues as the mystery remains unsolved …