Memory impairment in frontal brain damage

Abstract

Frontal cortex is involved in important memory processes but its role is different from that associated with structures in the medial temporal lobe and diencephalon. While damage in the latter structures produces profound and global anterograde amnesia, damage to the frontal cortex is manifested by an specific group of memory impairments and distortions like confabulations, source amnesia, prospective memory and metamemory deficit, or impaired free recall. Frontal lobes is less involved in memory acquisition per se than it is in leading the strategic processes that support memory encoding, retrieval and monitoring.