Post-encephalitic focal retrograde amnesia after bilateral anterior temporal lobe damage

A patient (HK; female; 43 years old) showed a severe, persistent retrograde amnesia extending back to her childhood in contrast to very limited anterograde deficits following a herpes simplex encephalitis. MRI revealed bilateral damage of the temporal lobes and anterior inferotemporal lobes in the absence of frontal lobe pathologies. The personal memory was more severely impaired than the ability to recall factual knowledge about her past. Referring to her impairments in recalling public memories, her scores in forced-choice recognition tasks were nearly normal showing only mild impairment for the last decade before the incident.