{"id":467,"date":"2015-02-10T15:20:11","date_gmt":"2015-02-10T15:20:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.blog-thebrain.org\/?p=968"},"modified":"2022-01-04T19:49:14","modified_gmt":"2022-01-04T19:49:14","slug":"famous-amnesia-patient-k-c-dies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.blog-thebrain.org\/beginner\/2015\/02\/10\/famous-amnesia-patient-k-c-dies\/","title":{"rendered":"Famous Amnesia Patient &#8220;K.C.&#8221; Dies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-3451\" title=\"kc\" src=\"https:\/\/www.blog-lecerveau.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/kc.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"110\" height=\"110\" \/><\/p>\n<p>He was almost as famous as Henri Molaison, <span style=\"color: #008080;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.blog-thebrain.org\/blog\/2012\/03\/24\/the-unforgettable-brain-of-an-amnesiac\/\"><span style=\"color: #008080;\">the famous patient \u201cH.M.\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/span> who was studied for decades by eminent researchers such as neuropsychologist Brenda Milner, in Montreal, and who died in 2008. Patient \u201cK.C.\u201d, whose real name was Kent Cochrane, died more recently, on March 27, 2014, at the age of 62.<\/p>\n<p>K.C. grew up in the suburbs of Toronto. Unlike H.M., who had had his two <span style=\"color: #008080;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thebrain.mcgill.ca\/flash\/i\/i_07\/i_07_cr\/i_07_cr_tra\/i_07_cr_tra.html#2\"><span style=\"color: #008080;\">hippocampi <\/span><\/a><\/span>surgically removed because of epilepsy, K.C. suffered serious damage to his brain, including both hippocampi, in a <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.855mikewins.com\/ann-arbor-motorcycle-accident-lawyers\/\">motorcycle accident<\/a><\/strong> on his way home from work, at the age of 30.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>But like H.M, K.C. ended up with a very severe memory deficit: <span style=\"color: #008080;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thebrain.mcgill.ca\/flash\/i\/i_07\/i_07_p\/i_07_p_oub\/i_07_p_oub.html#3\"><span style=\"color: #008080;\">total anterograde amnesia and gradual retrograde amnesia<\/span><\/a><\/span>. This means that he could not store any new memories, and he could not recall his past just before the accident (but the further back in time before the accident, the more memories he had).<\/p>\n<p>His <span style=\"color: #008080;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thebrain.mcgill.ca\/flash\/i\/i_07\/i_07_p\/i_07_p_tra\/i_07_p_tra.html#3\"><span style=\"color: #008080;\">explicit memory<\/span><\/a><\/span> (also known as declarative memory) was heavily affected, but not in precisely the same way as H.M\u2019s. For example, Kent Cochrane could successfully store new knowledge about the world, since he knew what AIDS was and what the Internet was when people talked to him about them, even though both of these concepts had emerged in popular culture some time after his accident in October 1981.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, this was what enabled Endel Tulving, a cognitive neuroscientist\u00c2 who worked closely with K.C., to establish a distinction between <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thebrain.mcgill.ca\/flash\/a\/a_07\/a_07_p\/a_07_p_tra\/a_07_p_tra.html#3\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">episodic memory and semantic memory<\/span><\/a><\/span>, which are now recognized as the two major subdivisions of explicit memory. At the same time, Tulving disproved the idea that memories are stored in a single location in the brain; as we now know, memory storage involves multiple systems incorporating various brain structures networked to one another.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/ici.radio-canada.ca\/emissions\/les_annees_lumiere\/2013-2014\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: 0pt;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.blog-lecerveau.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/d_lien.gif\" alt=\"d_lien\" width=\"15\" height=\"15\" \/> <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\">L&#8217;homme sans pass\u00e9 : D\u00e9c\u00e8s de l&#8217;homme sans m\u00e9moire<\/span><\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.thestar.com\/news\/gta\/2014\/04\/01\/toronto_amnesiac_whose_case_helped_rewrite_chapters_of_the_book_on_memory_dies.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"color: #008080;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: 0pt;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.blog-lecerveau.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/i_lien.gif\" alt=\"i_lien\" width=\"15\" height=\"15\" \/> Toronto amnesiac whose case helped rewrite chapters of the book on memory dies<\/span><\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Kent_Cochrane\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: 0pt;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.blog-lecerveau.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/i_lien.gif\" alt=\"i_lien\" width=\"15\" height=\"15\" \/> <span style=\"color: #008080;\">Kent Cochrane<\/span><\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Endel_Tulving\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"color: #008080;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: 0pt;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.blog-lecerveau.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/i_lien.gif\" alt=\"i_lien\" width=\"15\" height=\"15\" \/> Endel Tulving <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>He was almost as famous as Henri Molaison, the famous patient \u201cH.M.\u201d who was studied for decades by eminent researchers such as neuropsychologist Brenda Milner, in Montreal, and who died in 2008. Patient \u201cK.C.\u201d, whose real name was Kent Cochrane, died more recently, on March 27, 2014, at the age of 62. K.C. grew up [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[35,66,227],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog-thebrain.org\/beginner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog-thebrain.org\/beginner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog-thebrain.org\/beginner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog-thebrain.org\/beginner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog-thebrain.org\/beginner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=467"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog-thebrain.org\/beginner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":861,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog-thebrain.org\/beginner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467\/revisions\/861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog-thebrain.org\/beginner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog-thebrain.org\/beginner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog-thebrain.org\/beginner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}