"Sex that blows your mind, so to speak - orgasm then amnesia...and it's no soap opera"

It  is a peaceful Friday and wandering around the net I come on interesting and funny things.  Here is one.

David Pescovitz on November 5, 2009 11:54 AM Sex, then amnesia A woman named Alice, 59, had morning sex with her husband but immediately after, she was hit with amnesia. According to a CNN story, Alice experienced transient global amnesia, complete loss of short-term memory and some problems recalling older events too. Apparently, the curious condition can be triggered by a variety of vigorous exercise, sudden and drastic temperature change, or emotional trauma. Transient Global Amnesia can resolve itself quickly and usually doesn’t leave any permanent damage. Alice’s memory returned by the afternoon. CNN presented Alice’s case and spoke with Harvard neurology professor Louis Caplan about the causes of transient global amnesia. From CNN:

“(Sex) is actually a well-known precipitator. One of the things people have done to look at transient global amnesia is to look at frequency of various precipitants and sex always comes out as one of the most common,” said Caplan, a leading stroke expert at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts, who was not associated with Alice’s care. “It usually is after climax that it develops,” he said about its onset…In 1999, Johns Hopkins University doctors described two patients in their 70s who suffered TGA after having sex. In these cases, the act of “bearing down” — which occurs when people move their bowels, give birth or have sex — created pressure in the brain’s blood vessels, resulting in temporary lack of blood flow that caused amnesia, according to the study published in The Lancet…

Caplan likened the hippocampus, which is responsible for short-term memory in the brain, to a tape recorder. If blood flow to the brain gets restricted, the hippocampus cannot record new memory.

“The hippocampus is responsible for initially recording the information so you can play it back,” he said. “So if it’s not working, you won’t get the information.”

“Sex, then amnesia…and it’s no soap opera”

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