About this item
In 1953, 27-year-old Henry Gustave Molaison underwent an experimental “psychosurgical” procedure—a targeted lobotomy—in an effort to alleviate his debilitating epilepsy. The outcome was unexpected—when Henry awoke, he could no longer form new memories, and for the rest of his life would be trapped in the moment. But Henry’s tragedy would prove a gift to humanity. As renowned neuroscientist Suzanne Corkin explains in Permanent Present Tense, she and her colleagues brought to light the sharp contrast between Henry’s crippling memory impairment and his preserved intellect. This new insight that the capacity for remembering is housed in a specific brain area revolutionized the science of memory. The case of Henry—known only by his initials H.
About the Author
Suzanne Corkin is Professor of Neuroscience, Emerita in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT. Corkin's research over the last 48 years has focused on the study of patients with neurological disease, with the goal of linking specific cognitive processes, particularly memory, to discrete brain circuits.Corkin also examined the cognitive neuroscience of healthy aging, combining behavioral testing with magnetoencephalography, fMRI, and MRI methods to characterize the neurobiological and information processing mechanisms underlying decreased cognitive control in healthy aging. She is well known for her investigation of the famous amnesic patient, H.M., whom she met in 1962 and studied until his death in 2008. Corkin's book, Permanent Present Tense, was published in May 2013.Corkin is a Fellow of the Montreal Neurological Institute, the American Psychological Association, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She received the David Wallace Medal from the Australian Association of Gerontology, the Smith College Medal, a MERIT Award from the National Institutes of Health, and the Baltes Distinguished Research Achievement Award from the American Psychological Association, Division on Aging. She received the Brain and Cognitive Sciences Undergraduate Advising Award in 2011
