IN MEMORY OF H.M. 
» The brain of the most influential case in the history of neurology will become a microscopic digital atlas for web browsers.
Henry Gustav Molaison (H.M.), who died on Tuesday, December 2, 2008 at the age of 82, will be remembered as the man who could not remember.
H.M. experienced incapacitating epileptic seizures as a boy until at the age of 27 he underwent an experimental operation to remove the medial temporal lobe (MTL) tissue where the spasms originated. The surgery greatly reduced the frequency of his major seizures, but also resulted in the dramatic loss of his ability to create new memories. H.M.’s world became frozen in 1953, and his conscious life comprised of transient experiences intangible to him, as are most dreams in the morning. H.M. could remember facts that occurred before the operation and he retained the ability to store information for very short periods of time (immediate memory); the primary breakdown was in the consolidation of short-term memories into permanent storage.
H.M. was undoubtedly the most extensively studied individual in the history of brain research. Over the course of half a century, H.M. was the subject of hundreds of studies, some of which fundamentally changed science's understanding of brain structure, memory function, and neurological disease. The Brain Observatory has been chosen to preserve H.M.’s brain in the form of a permanent collection of giant microscope slides that will be digitized at high magnification and made available via the internet to researchers worldwide.
*Please contact The Brain Observatory to receive information and updates on the project.
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