One of the first things that struck Sacks was Jimmie’s excellent long-term memory. This was the tortured psychic state in which Sacks first encountered Jimmie G. The worst sufferers of Korsakov’s syndrome paradoxically become trapped in the past, while at the same time living in an inescapable present. Sometimes, the memory loss extends backward in time, eating up memories further and further back until only the most distant remain. The most recent memories tend to be those most severely impacted, with patients forgetting people they met and events they witnessed mere minutes before. Korsakov’s syndrome impairs short-term memory and causes retrograde amnesia-the inability to recall memories. This man likely suffered from the neurological impairment known as Korsakov’s syndrome, a condition caused by alcohol-related damage to the mammillary bodies in the brain. was a patient whom Oliver Sacks first met in 1975. Jimmie G.’s was very similar to ten-second-Tom from the movie 50 First Dates in that his memory of the last 30 years was wiped and he was stuck in an eternal present.Ĭontinue reading to learn all about the amazing case of Jimmie G. was one of psychologist Oliver Sacks’ patients who suffered from Korsakov’s syndrome. from The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat? What made Jimmie G.’s case study on Korsakov’s syndrome so unique?

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The guy who mistook his wife for a hat