A case of post-traumatic autobiographic amnesia]

A 23-year-old woman who was in the ninth month of pregnancy suffered a head injury by falling from the stairs. She regained consciousness in the ambulance car, however, could not recall anything about herself. The morning after, her neurological examination disclosed no abnormal findings. She was alert, spatially oriented, but unable to recall any personal information about herself, her work and family contexts. The results of WAIS-R and WMS were within normal range, and she showed a dissociation between a detailed knowledge of public events and famous people and a complete loss of autobiographic information. EEG and brain MRI were normal. Memory loss spontaneously recovered following several months, and 8 month later, the retrograde amnesia had almost resolved. Although it is well-known that autobiographic amnesia usually attributed to psychogenic etiology, the differential diagnosis of the similar selective retrograde amnesia by organic etiology is important.