I was watching Finding Nemo recently with Heidi and took note of the blue Fish Ellen DeGeneres plays who has no short term memory. It reminded me of something which I’ve been meaning to write about for a while. Movies and TV have displayed several characters with similar memory-related problems like Memento, SNL’s Mr. Shirt-Term Memory, or the forgettable Blank Slate. But what if it was a real life affliction? It is.

Enter Clive Wearing. A world-renowned British Musician, Composer and Choir Director, Wearing suffered a sever bout of viral infection to his brain in the 80’s. Destroying his left and right Hippocampi, the virus left him with profound amnesia. Clive’s stored memories were wiped clean. Tragically, he also lost the ability to develop new ones.

Our brains work in a way much like a computer. We keep long-term memory in a system much like a hard drive and recall it when necessary. In order to get to the hard drive, a memory must go into an intermediate “short term” system as well. We also have working memory which works much like RAM, giving us a system that we use to complete the tasks at hand. Clive has his RAM, but it can no longer communicate with the hard drive.

He is perpetually in a state of “now.” He has no trace of past or future. Within a few minutes he begins again, believing he is conscious for the first time. Each time his wife enters the room he greets her with excitement and open arms as if she is a long-lost love returning from months away. Each time.

Frustrated by his condition and unable to fully comprehend it, he feverishly fills journals with diary entries including the date, time, and the fact that he just woke up. Forgetting that he wrote them and unable to reconcile the fact that the handwriting matches his own, he angrily scratches each entry out only moments after writing them. He has journals filled with scribbled-over entries.

What is fascinating is that even though he lost his short term capabilities, he has kept the long term “hard drive memories.” He knows who he is, and what any normal person would need in order to function in society. He also has kept his procedural memory, enabling him to walk, talk, play the piano and sing. He is still skilled enough to point out mistakes in musical pieces.

In a remarkable moment caught on video, Wearing is seen playing a beautiful piano arrangement perfectly. The piece actually takes longer than our working memory would hold information, but he finishes the piece. The toll though is that he begins sputtering in light convulsions after he finishes the piece, reminiscent of the freeze a computer holds for a few seconds as it’s RAM catches up to a heavy load of information.

I couldn’t imagine being trapped in that state of perpetual moments. His wife who cares for him in the video must be going through emotional hell, never being able to truly connect with the love of her life, even though he is walking and talking in front of her. She probably catches what look like knowing glimpses in his eyes where for a moment she believes he has figured out how to go on and is once again the man she loved. And again the moment is gone and he his greeting her for the first time; one of an endless string of first times.

Fortunately, it has been 18 years since the documentary I saw and wearing is doing a little better. Moved to a facility that can offer him a more stable enviornment and care he is reportedly less frustrated by his condition. His wife visits almost every weekend.

Pretty Nuts. Clive Wearing.

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