Amnesic syndromes

The amnesic syndrome has long had a central position in understanding the role of the hippocampus and surrounding cortical medial temporal lobe structures in memory and cognition. In this article, we review the neuropsychological profile of the prototypical amnesic syndrome, including what is spared and impaired in memory, as well as other aspects of cognition, and we relate these findings to contemporary brain-behavior models. We also discuss how variants of the prototypical amnesic syndrome can arise from a framework that views the hippocampus as part of an extended neural network. As the clinical and cognitive neuroscience of memory evolves, so too will our understanding of the amnesic syndrome.