H.M.

H.M. These initials were all that was public of a man who wouldn’t remember your name. An operation to rid him of his acute form of epilepsy left him without his hippocampi, amygdoid nuclei, and the adjacent cortical regions.


In his obituary in The New York Times, Benedict Carey writes:

"In 1953, he underwent an experimental brain operation in Hartford to correct a seizure disorder, only to emerge from it fundamentally and irreparably changed. He developed a syndrome neurologists call profound amnesia. He had lost the ability to form new memories. He became one of the most renowned and studied neurological subjects. Scientists studied his brain and learned more about it than ever before."

A December 6, article in the San Diego Union-Tribune by Scott LaFee says, “H.M. was the object of hundreds of studies, some of which fundamentally changed science's understanding of brain structure, memory function and neurological disease.”

H.M. whose real name is Henry Gustav Molaison, died on November 30, at a Connecticut Nursing Home likely not remembering the past 55 years. Yet, neuroscience will never forget Mr. Molaison’s help in its advancement.

I do wonder what the legal implications of his study were and the legality of studying his brain after his death at The Brain Observatory at the Unniversity of California San Diego. To continue to study a man who was relatively emotionless, could not remember the stranger in the mirror and who more than likely had to be told everyday of the study is questionable.