Scientists are trying to understand how amnesiacs can lose all memory of their past life - and yet remember music. The answer may be that musical memories are stored in a special part of the brain.
When British conductor and musician Clive Wearing contracted a brain infection in 1985 he was left with a memory span of only 10 seconds.
The infection - herpes encephalitis - left him unable to recognise people he had seen or remember things that had been said just moments earlier.
But despite being acknowledged by doctors as having one of the most severe cases of amnesia ever, his musical ability and much of his musical memory was intact.
Now aged 73, he is still able to read music and play the piano and once even conducted his former choir again.
Now researchers believe they are closer to understanding how musical memory is preserved in some people - even when they can remember almost nothing of their past.
At a Society for Neuroscience meeting in Washington this month, a group of German neurologists described the case of a professional cellist, referred to as PM, who contracted herpes encephalitis virus in 2005.
He was unable to retain even simple information, such as the layout of his apartment.
But Dr Carsten Finke of Charite University Hospital in Berlin says he was "astonished" that the cellist's musical memory was largely intact and that he was still able to play his instrument.
The brain's medial temporal lobes, which are largely destroyed by severe cases of herpes encephalitis are "highly relevant" for remembering things such as facts and how, where and when an event happened.
"But this case and also the Clive Wearing case suggest that musical memory seems to be stored independently of the medial temporal lobes," Dr Finke says.
Read full article:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15791973
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