The story of Eugene Pauly (EP)

In 1992, Eugene Pauly was admitted to hospital, vomiting and experiencing severe stomach cramps. He was later diagnosed with viral encephalitis, a relatively less harmful virus but in rare cases, this virus finds its way to the brain and harms the brain tissues. In Eugene’s case, this virus had cut through the medial temporal lobe (a silver of cells which scientists believe is responsible for cognitive tasks like recalling past). He lost his semantic knowledge, for example, he could not remember the day of the week, could not remember the names of the nurses and doctors, had trouble recalling conversations. He had lost the ability to form any new memory and also was diagnosed with amnesia. He could not remember his friends and family.

His case was studied by the memory specialists at the University of California. He was studied by Larry Squire, who had studied the neuroanatomy of memory for three decades. Squire observed that his brain was very similar to the very famous case of H.M. who was institutionalized and studied for the rest of his life. Squire and other scientists studied the case by neuropsychological tests and memory tests.

In a particular instance, he was asked to draw the map of his house but he could not do it. However, he could fetch food and water from the kitchen whenever he felt hungry and thirsty. He would stand up and go up straight to the washroom whenever he had the urge to. This surprised the scientists that how a man who could not map his house can find his way to the kitchen without any assistance.

In another instance, he went out of the house without his wife (His wife used to take him for walks around the neighborhood). His wife was terrified knowing this because he did not remember his address and family. If he was lost, there was no way he could find his way back home. She went out to find him but could not find him anywhere. She came home crying only to find her husband in the house watching television. She was happy to see him back but also surprised. She informed Squire about it.

Squire and his assistants designed an experiment for him, they had 16 different objects and divided them into 8 pairs. In each pair, he took an object randomly and pasted a rectangle on its base that stated “correct”. He was asked to choose one and then asked to see if his choice was correct. In the initial weeks, his performance did not show any improvement, it was like he was not learning any new information. But, as the weeks passed, he started improving in choosing the correct object. However, as the psychologists changed the conditions of the experiment even mildly, for example when the scientists kept all the 16 objects in front of him all at once and asked him to keep all the correct objects in one pile, he could not perform at all or he started following the same routine by picking an object and almost automatically turning it over to see if it is correct. This proved that he was not learning any new information and no memory was created in his mind. He did not remember which objects were “correct”. In fact, all that he performed was only a habit.

He could carry his daily activities like going for a walk, eating a bacon and egg, watching a television show, and others because they all had become a habit.

We can only imagine how powerful habits can be when they can be incorporated in the life of a severely amnesic person. Habits have a mechanism of a cue, a routine, and a reward. But that is a story for some other day. Until then, take care.

Footnotes:

BOOK- The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg

Anterograde Amnesia, Wikipedia

https://prezi.com/dets_ne113us/the-study-of-eugene-pauly-1992/