"H. M." will be remembered

Arguably the most important and certainly the most famous single case study patient in Psychology and Neuroscience passed away on Tuesday December 2nd. H.M. as he was known to probably every student of Psychology can now be revealed as Henry G. Molaison, 82, from Windsor Locks, CT.

HM was a man with no memory (well... at least episodic). Early in his life he developed epilepsy which left him very much incapacitated, he would have numerous small and large seizures a day. After nearly lethal doses of drugs that sought (unsuccessfully) to control the seizures, doctors, namely William Scoville, decided on a drastic course of action. They would remove the source of the seizures. So after some exploration into HM's brain they discovered that the source of all his problems lay in and around the hippocampus. Melville and his team of surgeons went in a short time later and removed a majority of his medial temporal lobe and thankfully the seizures stopped. Unfortunately though, something just as debilitating replaced them - HM had no memory. He could remember some things prior to the surgery but he could form no new ones.

H.M. is the basis for nearly everything we now know today about the neural basis of memory. People have continued research with him up until his recent death at the ripe old age of 82.