Amnesia is a broad clinical term that refers to memory loss. The term has its roots in the Greek language and is formed by fusing two morphemes a, meaning “without,” and mnesis, meaning “memory.” It is common to distinguish between organic and psychogenic amnesia. Organic amnesia refers to memory loss due to documented or presumed brain disease. Psychogenicamnesia refers to memory loss due to presumed psychological defense mechanisms. The review in this entry is limited to organic amnesia, addressing the differences between amnesia and normal forgetting. Furthermore, this entry clarifies the ambiguity stemming from the difference in the ways in which the term amnesia is used by clinicians and neuroscientists versus by the general public, briefly relating the use of the term amnesia to ...

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