Veteran journalist Katie Couric is opening up about a recent health scare after experiencing several hours of sudden memory loss, an episode doctors later diagnosed as transient global amnesia, a condition that causes temporary memory loss.

In a recent Substack post, Couric, 69, said she was briefly hospitalized after losing several hours of memory while attending the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado on June 27.

Couric wrote that she remembers events that day until “about noon,” but everything through “at least 7 p.m.” remains “a big, black hole.” Although she participated in two panel discussions that afternoon, she has no memory of what happened.

Her husband, John Molner, said he noticed she appeared “weak and dizzy” after her final panel. At the hospital, doctors evaluated Couric for a possible stroke after she had trouble recalling the date, the president and the names of some family members. An MRI showed no evidence of a stroke, and doctors diagnosed her with transient global amnesia.

“While this was a freaky occurrence, it could have been much more serious,” Couric wrote. “So ultimately, I’m relieved — even though several hours of a Saturday in June will always be missing for me.”

Here’s what to know about transient global amnesia.

What is transient global amnesia?

Transient global amnesia is a sudden episode of temporary memory loss that typically lasts between one and 24 hours, according to an online library available on the National Library of Medicine.

The condition most commonly affects adults between ages 50 and 70.

People experiencing transient global amnesia remain awake and alert but are unable to form new memories. They may repeatedly ask the same questions and temporarily lose memories from the hours leading up to the episode.

The exact cause of transient global amnesia remains unknown. However, people with migraines, hyperlipidemia, or high cholesterol, and heart disease may have an increased risk of experiencing the condition, according to research published in PubMed.

Is there treatment?

There is no specific treatment for transient global amnesia. Symptoms typically resolve on their own within 24 hours, and most people recover completely without lasting complications.

Couric wrote that she wondered whether altitude, dehydration, stress or lack of sleep may have contributed to her episode, but said “the cause seems to be as mysterious as the brain itself.”

Transient global amnesia is typically diagnosed only after more serious causes of sudden memory loss have been ruled out, according to the online library.

Katie Couric reveals bout of temporary amnesia syndrome

Former Today show anchor Katie Couric revealed she experienced a bout of transient global amnesia, a rare condition that temporarily wipes a person’s memory while they remain self-aware.

The veteran journalist shared some details of her experience, which happened on June 27, in an Instagram post, writing, “I woke up on a normal Saturday. By that afternoon, I couldn’t tell you the month, the year, or who was president.”

In a longer essay titled “The Day I’ll Never Remember” published on Substack, Couric recalls her day starting with a trip to the farmers’ market in Aspen, where she picked up fresh fruit and an iced coffee before heading home and sitting down with a bowl of cereal and “some beautiful peaches and nectarines” from the market.

The last thing she remembers is her husband, John Molner, driving her to a festival in town that afternoon.

Couric is not the only well-known media personality to experience this type of amnesia. In 2020, Survivor host Jeff Probst spoke publicly about suffering memory loss.

During an appearance on Live With Kelly and Ryan in February 2020, Probst revealed he had “a really weird thing” happen with his health.

“I was booking travel for my wife and I to go to Vegas, and it gets to your wife’s birth date and I went, ‘What is my wife’s birthday?’” Probst said. “I couldn’t figure it out, so I texted my wife and said, Can you call me?”

She asked him what was happening, and he said: “I don’t know. I don’t really know what’s happening. I don’t know anything. Where are the kids?”

Probst said his wife told him the kids were at school while she was at work and explained that for two hours after the phone call, he had “zero recollection” of what was happening to him.

“I had no idea who I was, where I was,” Probst said on the show. “I even wrote a note … on my laptop, I wrote a note that said, ‘For our records, I have no idea why I’m wearing these clothes. I have no idea where our kids are. I have no idea what day it is. I have no idea why I’m writing this.’”

He said that later he read the note back and “had no memory of writing it.”

Transient global amnesia occurs in about 3.4 to 10.4 per 100,000 people per year in the general population, according to the National Institutes of Health, but increases to 23.5 to 32 per 100,000 per year in individuals over 50.