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Brain Surgery Patient Trapped in a Mental Time Warp

Posted by samzenpus on from the can-I-leave-my-shirts-here dept.

diverge_s writes "BrainConnection has an interesting article about a man who lives life straight out of the movie Memento. FTA: "When twenty-seven year old Henry M. entered the hospital in 1953 for radical brain surgery that was supposed to cure his epilepsy, he was hopeful that the procedure would change his life for the better. Instead, it trapped him in a mental time warp where TV is always a new invention and Truman is forever president. The removal of large sections of his temporal lobes left Henry unable to form any new personal memories, but his tragic loss revolutionized the field of psychology and made "H.M." the most-studied individual in the history of brain research.""

5 of 338 comments (clear)

  1. Re:A bit more about him by NitsujTPU · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    Why not just buy the beer for her?

    When I'm on my last legs, I'm pretty sure that I'm tossing the gym membership and signing up for the Cigar, Scotch, and Hamburger of the Month clubs, as well as enjoying biscuits and gravy with sunny side up eggs every morning for breakfast. All of that while gambling my money away.

    Pretty much, everything that I do in moderation now, I'll do to the degree that it will kill me by the time I'm in my 70s or 80s. What will my doctor say? "You know, smoking could knock the last 5 or 6 months off your life at the rate you're going."

  2. Hmmm...... by Saeed+al-Sahaf · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    The story description starts out "diverge_s writes...", but although most here will never actually follow the link and read the article, if they did they would see that the first paragraph is almost identical to diverge_s' description. So, he / she didn't really write the summary as the Slashdot blerb suggests

    --
    "Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
  3. I'm trapped! by DARKFORCE123 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Maybe I am the one trapped in a time warp? This article is odd. Could it be April 1st already?

  4. Re:When my mother had a stroke... by Hadlock · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    My kingdom for a mod point

    --
    moox. for a new generation.
  5. CONTEST: What is the oldest piece of "News" on /.? by feijai · · Score: 0, Offtopic
    This "news" is a famous medical case which dates from the 1950s. I heard about it in elementary school. I think it is the tiredest piece of information which /. has ever reported on as "News for Nerds".

    So I'm offering a contest. I will personally mail $5 to the person who comes up with a piece of "News" on /. that's older and more tired than this one. Whoever finds the oldest piece ever wins.

    The rules:

    1. You must respond directly this message, otherwise it doesn't count.
    2. If only a few people respond, I will not mail out the $5, but I will still say who I think won.
    3. I'm the judge and jury. No griping.
    4. The item shouldn't be about something that's old: the news itself should be old.
    5. The news only wins if it's provably old -- you need to provide evidence if it's not self-evident.
    6. I will reply to the winner. To receive the $5 you must reply again giving me some way to identify who you are and send you some $$$. There are various ways to do this: you could post a snail-mail address to send it to; if you are worried people will carpet-bomb your address, we could work out a public-key encryption thingamajigger transaction. If you do not reply in a timely fashion (say, a day), I will go down the list and offer the $5 to the next person.