Webster's New World Medical Dictionary

memory, anterograde
Memory for things fol-
lowing an event or brain injury. The opposite of ret-
rograde memory.
memory, long-term
The ability to permanently
store, manage, and retrieve information for later
use. Items of information stored as long-term mem-
ory may be available for a lifetime.
memory, recent
See 
memory, short-term.
memory, retrograde
Memory for things prior to
an event or brain injury. The opposite of antero-
grade memory.
memory, short-term
The ability to temporarily
store and manage information that is required to
carry out complex cognitive tasks such as learning,
reasoning, and comprehension. Short-term mem-
ory is involved in the selection, initiation, and ter-
mination of information-processing functions, such
as encoding, storing, and retrieving data. One test of
short-term memory is memory span: the number of
items, usually words or numbers, that a person can
retain and recall. Also known as recent or working
memory. See also 
memory; memory span.
memory, working
See 
memory, short-term.
melasma
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memory B cells
Secondary immune-system
components that have an affinity for a particular
antigen. Like other B cells, memory B cells originate
from lymphocytes that develop and are activated in
the bone marrow. 
memory span
The number of items, usually
words or numbers, that a person can retain and
recall. Memory span is a test of working memory
(short-term memory). In a typical test of memory
span, an examiner reads a list of random numbers
aloud at about the rate of one number per second.
At the end of a sequence, the person being tested is
asked to recall the items, in order. The average
memory span for normal adults is seven.
menarche
The time in a girl’s life when menstru-
ation first begins. During the menarche period,
menstruation may be irregular and unpredictable.
Also known as female puberty.
Mendel, Gregor
The father of genetics, the
Moravian/Bohemian biologist who in the 19th cen-
tury set forth the basic laws that constitute the foun-
dation of classical genetics. Mendel’s controlled
experiments with breeding peas in the monastery
garden led him to conclude that the heritable units
(now called genes) were not blends of parental traits,
but rather were separate physical entities passed indi-
vidually from one generation to the next.