Qualitative research methodology

Case studies
Interview
Observations

Case studies may be longitudinal or cross sectional

Why is this a case study?

Henry molaison case study:

A case study must be highly descriptive, this case study is one of the most known case studies in the
world as it has helped the human kind understand neuroscience on a deeper level. Therefore, a lot of
case studies have been published about this topic in a very detailed and descriptive manner this was
shown through the case study done by Bigya Shah where she was able to describe Molaison’s past
and the history to why this case study was very important, the experimental procedure was described
and was highly detailed and then a big part of the case study was dedicated to the critical discoveries
from his experiment.

This case study is based and narrowly focused on the researcher himself, as he suffered from severe
seizures for 10 years of his life. Molaison allowed surgeons to remove a thumb-sized section of tissue
from each side of his brain. And, it worked. The seizures abated, but afterwards Molaison was left
with permanent amnesia, although he was unable to form new memories. What was a tragedy for
Molaison led to one of the most significant turning points in 20th century brain science: the
understanding that complex functions such as learning and memory are tied to discrete regions of the
brain.

This case study is process oriented, not outcome oriented. This is because the study of the loss of
memory was focused on the surgery done to the brain and the removal of the important parts of the
brain that were responsible on Henry’s memory. This case study did not focus on henry’s loss of
memory as much as the reason to why he lost his memory which was one of science’s most known
breakthroughs.

This case study took a longitudinal approach as it looks at Henry’s brain over time, scientists studied
his seizures before the operation and then the effect of the operation on Henry’s memory over a long
period of time.