Transient autobiographic amnesia: EEG and single-photon emission CT evidence of an organic etiology.

We describe a 44-year-old patient who had a transient attack of autobiographic amnesia. When assessed during the attack, her learning abilities were normal, with no sign of anterograde amnesia. In the remote memory domain, she showed a striking dissociation between a detailed knowledge of public events and famous people and a complete loss of autobiographic information. During the attack, EEG recorded bilateral frontotemporal slow waves and single-photon emission CT (SPECT) showed hypoperfusion in the right temporal and parietal lobes; no abnormalities were detected when both EEG and SPECT were repeated 1 week later. This case provides evidence for an organic etiology for the episode and supports the hypothesis that autobiographic memory is independent of other forms of retrograde memory.