Occasionally Christy Morrill will flip through photo albums and see pictures of himself, and anguish over why he can't recall anything about where he was or what he was doing.

Morrill suddenly lost about five decades of his autobiographical memories, his life experiences from when he was a young man to 2020. That’s when he was struck with autoimmune encephalitis – his immune system began attacking parts of his brain. It’s one of the most inexplicable forms of autoimmune disease. And the type of rogue antibody that rampages through patients’ brains helps explain symptoms and their lasting damage.

Morrill had what’s called LGI1-antibody encephalitis. He was treated and recovered but has major holes in his memory center.

His son’s wedding. International travel with his wife. His accomplishments at work. Those memories are gone for him.

His “autobiographical memory is very hollow.” While his semantic memory, on names and facts is intact, his personal memories are gone.

“I remember Ulysses is published in Paris in 1922 at Sylvia Beach's bookstore. Why do I remember that? Which is of no use to me anymore. And yet I can't remember my son's wedding?” he said.

His neurologist, Dr. Michael Cohen said he and his colleagues found the case to be very “unusual” before they made a diagnosis. It was when he had a seizure in front of a group of doctors, that pointed them toward the rare autoimmune disease.

Today, Morrill is focused on creating new memories after the 2020 diagnosis. “This is beyond my wildest expectations that I'm re-entering some real time of fun, joy,” he said. “I wasn't shooting for that. I just want to be alive.”

____

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.