Dulce Yahayra Arriola The brain is a very important organ in our body that allows us to perform functions; however, it is very delicate and if it suffers traumatic injuries it could fail to function properly. There are different regions of the brain and structures that are important to how a person functions on a daily basis. There is many cases where people have accidents and injure their brain, which affects them on how they continue to live their life or what they remember about their life. For example, Scott Bolzan a former NFL player, lost his memory after he injured his brain when he fell and hit his head on the floor. Bolzan now suffers from retrograde amnesia losing memory of forty six years of his life and the only thing Bolzan…show more content… The type of amnesia Scott Bolzan suffers from is retrograde amnesia,which according to O'Keefe Osborn this type of amnesia affects the memories of the person's life before the accident causing them to loose any memory or knowledge they had acquired before. This disorder is caused when damage is done to either of the two parts of the brain the encephalitis or medial temporal lobe. The function and purpose of the medial temporal lobe is crucial in holding one's memories because it is made up of different structures, therefore if it is damaged one could lose memory of events or knowledge. According to “Veterans Affairs Healthcare System” (n.d.), the medial temporal lobe has related structures such as the hippocampus, entorhinal, adjacent perirhinal, and parahippocampal cortices that function together to store and retain information and memories. Furthermore, Bolzan had trouble recalling many things even his children and that is when the his doctors diagnosed that he had damaged the right temporal lobe of his brain because there seemed to be no blood flow towards that right lobe (Donaldson James, 2011). Therefore, since his right temporal lobe was damaged and was not receiving any blood flow he lost every memory of before his accident causing him to have the brain disorder of retrograde…show more content… Moreover, it took a few months before Bolzan actually knew he had retrograde amnesia and through the months he suffered from not recognizing many parts of his daily life and family. At first Bolzan’s doctor believed he had a severe concussion and that he would recover from it, yet Bolzan still suffered from memory loss (Donaldson James, 2011). Therefore, once he knew what brain disorder he had Bolzan was confused at times and only knew how to perform or remember certain information. For example, he would know aspects of how to play football, he did not know how to turn on his car, but knew what traffic lights and signs meant, and was even able to start new memories compared to others with retrograde amnesia (Donaldson James, 2011). The main symptom Bolzan experienced was memory loss that wiped out his memory of his past, but still being able to acquire new memories as he moves
