Ribot's Law

Ribot's Law of retrograde amnesia was hypothesized in 1881 by Théodule Ribot. It states that there is a time gradient in retrograde amnesia, so that recent memories are more likely to be lost than the more remote memories. Not all patients suffering from retrograde amnesia report the symptoms of Ribot's Law.

Ribot’s Law was first postulated by the French psychologist Théodule Ribot (1839 -1916), who is recognized as one of the pioneer 19th century advocates for psychology as an objective and biologically-based empirical field. Ribot’s split from the mainstream “Eclectic” psychology of the era was associated with a transition from philosophical to evolutionary explanations of human psychology and behavior. As Ribot was not a true experimentalist himself, this increased focus on the natural science basis of human mentality was manifested in an interest for case studies and diseases of dysfunction which helped to shape theories of psychological function. Ribot’s Law actually was first defined in terms of a broad generalization of functional decline in psychopathology: the observation that functions acquired most recently are the first to degenerate. However, in the current context of neuroscience research, Ribot’s Law is used almost exclusively to describe the perceived effect of older memories being less prone to disruption.

In his 1882 book, “Diseases of Memory: An Essay in the Positive Psychology “, Ribot explained the retroactive phenomena of trauma or event-induced memory loss. Patients who incurred amnesia from a specific event such as an accident often also lost memory of the events leading up to the incident as well. In the case of some, this retrograde loss included several years leading up to the precipitating event of injury or trauma had occurred – yet left much older memories intact – suggesting that the effect was not just due to interference with consolidation of memories immediately before brain damage.

Other historical accounts supporting the greater strength of older memories include some studies of aphasia starting as early as the late 1700s, in which bilingual patients recovered different languages with differential progress. In some cases, aphasics recover or preferentially improve only the first-acquired language, although this only seems to be the case mostly in people who were never truly fluent in their secondary language. Currently, Ribot’s Law is not universally accepted as a supporting example for memory consolidation and storage. As a component of the standard model memory of systems consolidation, it is challenged by the multiple trace theory which states that the hippocampus is always activated in the storage and retrieval of episodic memory regardless of memory age.

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