I experienced an episode of transient global amnesia [1] a couple of years ago. It lasted for 6-7 hours, during which I was transported to the hospital, but every 2-3 minutes I would ask anew "Why am I in the hospital?" — having no memory at all of being there. I still have no clue what might have caused it. I mean, scientists don't have a clue what causes it, only a wide range of speculated causes, none of which really applied to me.
Since there's no known way to prevent TGA, no treatment, and apparently no lasting damage, it has never (AFAIK) been researched, certainly not researched much, but it strikes me as the kind of thing that should be studied. If scientists could figure out how memory formation is completely blocked in episodes of TGA, it seems like that would provide useful data about how memory formation normally works.
> Since there's no known way to prevent TGA, no treatment, and apparently no lasting damage, it has never (AFAIK) been researched, certainly not researched much
I suspect the issue may be the lack of a good biological model. I'd guess it would be a very attractive and obvious research target for anyone aiming to investigate memory formation and recall. However, systematic studies generally require a model system that can be reliably reproduced.
Possibly, but I strongly suspect humans wouldn't be very good models in this case given how much we don't know about memory in general. Rather you'd want a robust non-human animal model of some sort, with a straightforward way of inducing TGA (or something that appeared to be substantially similar) on demand. Think rodent with optogenetic modifications or similar.
I've suffered a serious head injury when I was a teenager and my brain lost the feeling of time for two days. I knew, logically, that lunch happened before dinner, but I couldn't _perceive_ it as such. It's hard to explain. The brain is a complex machine.
Since there's no known way to prevent TGA, no treatment, and apparently no lasting damage, it has never (AFAIK) been researched, certainly not researched much, but it strikes me as the kind of thing that should be studied. If scientists could figure out how memory formation is completely blocked in episodes of TGA, it seems like that would provide useful data about how memory formation normally works.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transient_global_amnesia