Forgettable Night of Passion: Female Orgasm Leads to Amnesia

For most women, a night of great sex is unforgettable. For a 54-year-old woman being studied by researchers at Georgetown University Hospital, one night of passion literally blew her mind, causing her to experience memory loss after having sex with her husband.

The woman went to Georgetown’s emergency department complaining that she couldn’t remember anything that happened 24 hours before climaxing. Doctors diagnosed her with transient global amnesia, a rare and sudden episode of memory loss.

Carol Lippa, MD, a Professor of Neurology at Drexel University Medical School, said “Transient global amnesia is caused by a scrambling of the memory circuits in the brain, often brought on by physical or emotional triggers.

“In post-coital cases, transient global amnesia may be related to changes in blood flow in the vessels that feed the brain’s memory formation areas — sort of a remote consequence of the altered blood flow that occurs during sex.”