Can people with amnesia learn new things?
YES! You can still learn things even if you have severe amnesia. Scientists believe that there are different forms of memories that depend on different brain regions. One type of memory involves remembering individual facts or events (such as what you did yesterday, or what country Paris is in). This kind of memory is often called declarative memory, because it is easy to state or “declare” the content of the memory. But there are other kinds of memory, too, such as memory for habits or skills. An example is learning to ride a bike or to tie a shoelace. Unlike declarative memory, it is very difficult to state or declare the rules for how to tie a shoelace, even though you may understand the procedure very well. For this reason, this kind of memory is sometimes called procedural memory. Typically, individuals with severe anterograde amnesia are greatly impaired in their ability to acquire new declarative memories, but they may not be impaired at acquiring new procedural memories. Thus,
