As already mentioned, the story of Memento is told backwards and starts at the end of its right chronological order (scene V), where Leonard kills Teddy. Therefore, the story ends at sequence A, where Lenny kills Jimmy the drug dealer.

Teddy, a police officer, has helped and is helping Lenard with his puzzles in order to give his life meaning. Leonard killed his own wife with the insulin shots – she died because of an insulin overdose (Sam Jenkins story).

The film ends with Leonard arriving at a tattoo shop to ink Teddy’s license plate number on to himself, setting himself on a course that ends with the murder scene that opens the film. Present-Leonard is setting up future-Leonard to enact revenge he won’t even understand.

Teddy tells Leonard there are plenty of John Gs to find and admits that he is even a John G: his full name is John Edward Gammell and his mother calls him Teddy. Before Lenny can forget Teddy’s revelations, he decides to continue the hunt, lying to himself to set himself up to kill Teddy.

The film is presented as two different sequences of scenes interspersed during the film: a series in black-and-white that is shown chronologically, and a series of color sequences shown in reverse order (simulating for the audience the mental state of the protagonist).

The film deals with the theme of memory throughout, as Leonard has a short-term memory loss condition that does not allow him to learn new things. Because he cannot form new memories, he is constantly starting over again—relearning the same facts, making the same mistakes, and re-experiencing the same trauma.

In the climax of the art-noir “Memento,” Guy Pearce, as a man suffering short-term memory loss investigating the murder of his wife, kills Joe Pantoliano, playing his assistant, after coming to believe that Pantoliano is the real killer.

Yet, according to Teddy (and a few frames of flashback), most of this isn’t Sammy’s story at all; it’s Leonard’s. Leonard’s wife survived the assault. She was the diabetic. She was the one who tested his short-term memory loss by demanding extra shots of insulin, which he gave her, and which ended up killing her.

Anterograde amnesia (AA) refers to an impaired capacity for new learning. Retrograde amnesia (RA) refers to the loss of information that was acquired before the onset of amnesia.

It is usually triggered by an event that the person’s mind is unable to cope with properly. The ability to remember usually returns either slowly or suddenly within a few days, but the memory of the shocking event may never come back completely.

When continuous memory returns, the person can usually function normally. Retrograde amnesia sufferers may partially regain memory later, but memories are never regained with anterograde amnesia because they were not encoded properly.

If you mean total loss of memory – you wake up one morning and have the “memory” of a newborn infant – pretty much. “You” aren’t there any more, just your body is, but it’s still functioning. In death it’s about the same thing, but your body has ceased functioning.

Isolated memory loss doesn’t affect a person’s intelligence, general knowledge, awareness, attention span, judgment, personality or identity. People with amnesia usually can understand written and spoken words and can learn skills such as bike riding or piano playing.

The Anterograde Amnesia is particularly affecting the encoding and consolidation stages of declarative memory. This will, in turn, lead to damage to the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus. Retrograde Amnesia is the inability to recall old memories.

Selective amnesia — How a traumatic memory can be wiped out Recalling an event stored in the long-term memory triggers a reprocessing phase: the recollection then becomes sensitive to pharmacological disturbances before being once more stored in the long-term memory.

Caution! These 10 Drugs Can Cause Memory Loss

• Antianxiety drugs (Benzodiazepines)
• Cholesterol-lowering drugs (Statins)
• Antiseizure drugs.
• Antidepressant drugs (Tricyclic antidepressants)
• Narcotic painkillers.
• Parkinson’s drugs (Dopamine agonists)
• Hypertension drugs (Beta-blockers)
• Sleeping aids (Nonbenzodiazepine sedative-hypnotics)