The 50 first dates redux: Dentist leaves UK man with 90-minute memory

Imagine going to your dentist for a regular root canal. When you wake up, with the errant tooth out you have no recollection of where you are or even who you are. Sounds like a plot for a bad movie? Maybe a 50 First Dates 2 plot? Nope, it isn’t. William’s body clock is forever stuck at 13:40 on 14 March 2005 – right in the middle of his dentist appointment. [caption id=“attachment_2325998” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. Reuters[/caption] “I remember getting into the chair and the dentist inserting the local anaesthetic,” he tells the BBC. After that? He’s a blank canvas. Even when he forms new memories, they only last for about 90 minutes, according to the case report his medical team recently published in the journal Neurocase. In a bizarre situation, he remembers everything up until the point where he is at the dentist’s office and if being injected with anesthesia. After the surgery is when the problem was noticed. William was pale, and his eyes were “vacant” and unfocused. He was taken to the hospital and it was there that they realised he had lost his ability to form long-term memories; his brain rebooted every ten minutes. Since then his mind has improved to about “90-minute span of awareness,” but it has not improved in the ten years that have passed since then. “He wakes up believing that he should still be in the military, stationed abroad,” the BBC reports. “Every day he thinks it is the day of the dental appointment. His wife has entered a guide to his present life in the notes section of his smartphone, titled “First thing — read this,” reports the New York Magazine. The author of the report GH Burgess hopes that after the publication of the case report, other psychiatrists and neurologists who have seen similar cases, which could eventually help William. Psychologists and brain specialists even ten years later remain dumfounded as to the cause of his amnesia. You can read the full report here.