Despite Debilitating Memory Loss, an Amnesic Cellist Learns and Remembers Music →

A 68-year-old concert cellist [PM] suffering from severe amnesia can still learn new music, researchers  reported at the Society for Neuroscience conference this weekend. 

PM’s persistent musical acumen, his doctors say, suggests that musical memory is stored elsewhere in the brain than explicit memory is, an idea also supported by the observation that some patients with Alzheimer’s- or stroke-induced memory loss can still call up musical memories when other memories have faded. What’s more, scientists have seen before that even when explicit memory is wiped out,  implicit memory—skills and other knowledge we aren’t consciously aware of—can remain: HM, another patient with severe retrograde and anterograde amnesia, was  able to learn new motor skills even though he had no memory of practicing them. PM’s case fits in with this larger body of research showing that memory isn’t a monolith; it’s several distinct process that go about their business, to a large extent, independently.