Question

If a person is not able to form new memories, what might be damaged?

Answer 1

Hippocampus

Explanation:

Memories are principally of two types,short term and long term memories.

Everyone of us can remember any single thing for certain period,after it has happened,which is called short term memory. This generally doesn't persist long until and unless it's very special.

But things which we want to remember for long are converted by a special part of our brain,known as HIPPOCAMPUS,which selectively stores important memories but not all and it's function is said to convert short term memory into long term memory.

So if a person has got a tendency to forget everything it means his hippocampus has been damaged.

Strictly speaking this is not defining any specialised disease condition. The major case of neuronal damage which occurs to hippocampus with age in some person,is known as Alzheimer's disease.

But this type of damage to hippocampus can occur in other conditions as well which may last for shorter or longer period.