The paper Profound anterograde amnesia following routine anesthetic and dental procedure [1] > Anterograde amnesia caused by bilateral hippocampal or diencepha

The paper Profound anterograde amnesia following routine anesthetic and dental procedure [1] > Anterograde amnesia caused by bilateral hippocampal or diencephalon damage manifests in characteristic symptoms of preserved intellect and implicit learning, and short span of awareness with complete and rapid forgetting of episodic material. A new case, WO, 38-year-old male with anterograde amnesia, in the absence of structural brain changes or psychological explanation... amnesia onset coincided with anesthetic injection and root canal procedure, with extended vasovagal-like incident. > WO attended a routine dental appointment for root canal treatment at 13:40 hours. He was injected with the anesthetic, Citanest with Octapressin 3% just prior to the beginning of treatment. He wore tinted dental glasses, obscuring a view to his level of responsiveness. The procedure was completed at 14:30 hours, and at this time it became apparent that WO was pale and faint, and could not get himself up when re-positioned from the supine to the upright position. So after the 50 minute dental surgery, the patient was still suffering from something similar to an extended fainting spell (vasovagal syncope). This resulted in permanent brain dysfunction isolated to the parts of the brain associated with forming long-term memory without any measurable structural damage. A weird but fascinating puzzle. Question 1: does oxygen deprivation in the brain result in measurable structural damage? Question 2: can an anaesthetic selectively impact one artery servicing the brain? [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25978125/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25978125/