Riddhika Parmar, Week 14: Remembering
Riddhika Parmar
Week 14 - 4/5/22
Remembering
The human brain is fascinating. Described as “a curved seahorse-shaped organ on the underside of each temporal lobe,” the hippocampus is mainly responsible for our memories.
I don’t know about you, but I feel like my parents are constantly sharing stories from when I was “just a baby” or very young. Since I have no memory of it (but they do), I can’t even begin to think that was the same person I am now. So, I wanted to understand why it is that most people cannot remember anything from their very early childhood. The short answer is that our brains don’t develop enough to remember events until about 3-4 years of age, depending on the person. That’s about the time we have our first actual memory, and even that is not a rich or full-blown memory but can be hazy or vague, missing a lot of key details and may appear as a snapshot of an event.
When a baby is born, its brain is merely a quarter of what it will be at adulthood, and by 2 years of age, it will grow to three-quarters of the size of an adult brain. This change in size occurs because neurons are continuously growing and our brain (much like the rest of our body) is still growing. For example, the hippocampus keeps producing new neurons into adulthood. Within the hippocampus, the dentate gyrus makes new neurons at a fast pace. The new neurons are completely integrated into hippocampal circuits. Scientists have conducted studies that even suggest that it is precisely this rapid rate of new neuron production that is responsible for us forgetting so much about when we are young. In this way, new memory circuits are continuously being created so the earlier ones don’t remain as is.
As I read more about infants and memory, I came upon an article about an Australian woman named Rebecca Sharrock. She remembers everything from when she was just 12 days old, being placed in a car seat in her parent’s car. She remembers everything because she has Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory (HSAM). It’s a rare medical condition that stops people from being able to forget anything, and it’s thought that only around 60-80 people in the world have it. As a result, Rebecca can actually remember her entire life in vivid detail, including dreams when she was just a baby. Rebecca, who is also autistic, calls HSAM a “blessing and a curse,” suffering from insomnia and depression from not being able to forget anything.
In addition to remembering very early memories, there is currently a Netflix documentary, called “Surviving Death,” where you can watch people who remember their past lives and people who remember near death experiences. That is an entirely different topic of memory.
Just in the process of writing this blog, my brain and mind have traversed in so many different directions. The human brain is truly remarkable and, in the end, even though we have done a lot of research on the human brain, there’s still so much more to do and so much we don’t actually know.
Credit:
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/anatomy-of-the-brain#:~:text=Hippocampus,navigation%20and%20perception%20of%20space
https://news.mit.edu/2017/neuroscientists-identify-brain-circuit-necessary-memory-formation-0406
https://qbi.uq.edu.au/podcast-super-memory-what-its-remember-being-baby.
https://www.boredpanda.com/woman-remember-every-day-rebecca-sharrock/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic
Hi Riddhika, I found your blog quite interesting because I like researching neuroscience and learning about the brain. You mention that Rebeca Sharrock can remember every part of her life, which I feel can have many upsides and downsides. Having that great of memory, she must of breezed through school as she could retain the concepts learned during lectures. However, as someone who overthinks sometimes, I wonder how her memory impacts her focus. I am not sure if this is real, but a while ago I remember watching a documentary about people who believe that they can remember their past life. Do you believe that people can have memories before they are even born?
ReplyDeleteIt is crazy how some people can literally remember coming out of the womb when I fail to remember what I ate for dinner last night. I definitely do have random snippets of my early childhood that I remember vividly, but nothing to the extent of Rebecca Sharrock. I wonder why some random memories we seem to prioritize and let stay in our brains, while others just fly by. It would be cool if in the future we could trace back our forgotten memories and relive them with some crazy new technological inventions.
ReplyDeleteHello Riddhika,
ReplyDeleteYour image truly encapsulates how my brain digresses into so many tangents when I am trying to focus. I think about a hundred thoughts a minute and cannot keep track of where new information is stored. I wish I could choose which memories to keep and which information to expel from my mind. Maybe I would be able to improve my memory of things I actually want to remember. Not being able to forget certainly would be a blessing and a curse. It would be near impossible to “move on” from an unsettling experience or look past someone’s history when interacting with them. Your blog has reminded me that there is positive and a negative to everything, even memories. While I push myself to improve my memory, I must not forget to appreciate the limits my brain places on them.
Hi Riddhhika! I remember watching an interview with a few people that quite literally could not forget anything. The interviewer would ask them who they ate lunch with and what they talked about on a specific date decades ago, and they would be able to recall the memory as if it were yesterday. I found it quite fascinating as I can barely remember what I ate for dinner the day before. Though it may seem like a blessing, I do agree that in some ways, such a flawless memory could also be a curse. Imagine living through a traumatic event and not being able to forget it...
ReplyDeleteHey Riddhika, I knew that some people had photographic memory or enhanced memories, but I never realized that there were people with such supernatural memories that they could remember dreams from age twelve. I can't even imagine being able to process and store that many memories and that much information in my head, and I don't know if I would ever want that or not. I feel like supernatural memory is something that appeals to a lot of people initially because it would make it that much easier to study for tests and everything, but there are so many memories that I am so glad I can not remember in vivid detail. I wonder if not being able to let go of past memories and constantly having them haunting one's present would make it harder or easier for someone to move on from their past.
ReplyDeleteHey Riddhika! It's so interesting when you mentioned how a certain group of individuals have the potential to remember dreams from years back. As if remembering everything about a particular vacation isn't hard enough for so many, people have vivid memories of their smallest and largest dreams with is honestly really cool. Although I agree its cool in so many ways as people who have that have what might be rare to only a few, it's scary at the same time. I feel like if a child had a horrific dream that ended up waking them up when they were younger and they couldn't remove that memory, that they would have to learn to live with it their entire lives which is hard and something unimaginable.
ReplyDeleteHi Riddhika! The thought of not forgetting anything seems very convenient, and I would love to have that kind of supernatural memory. But perhaps it also has its downsides. Nevertheless, like you said, the human brain is truly remarkable
ReplyDeleteHey Riddhika! Literally a few minutes ago, a friend (who is writing blog comments next to me) showed me a person in their cohort write about HSAM. Upon further exploration, I too found the article about Shamrock, whose first memory is at only 12 days old. My blog post is on childhood amnesia, so her issue is the exact opposite of that--she remembers way earlier than most people. Her story and situation is so sad. Upon reading about HSAM, I thought it was so interesting and cool to have. But your blog post showed me how detrimental it could be. You cannot forget or move past any traumatic event, and it will always be there readily available. Wow. The mind works in marvelously mystifying ways.
ReplyDeleteHi Riddhika, the phenomenon that you mentioned where you can virtually remember anything is called eidetic memory. It's really fascinating because scientists have not been able to connect that to any genetic or hormonal conditions. It is seemingly random, sometimes triggered by a tumor or accident. Just like you mentioned, it is beneficial but it can also lead to intense PTSD and other recollections of bad memories. This brings up an interesting question: if you could remember everything that happened, would you choose to have that? I am not sure how I would answer that.
ReplyDelete