Other than some joyful or tragic experiences that struck us during childhood, old memories are hard to recall. According to the paper published at Nature Science, newly formed neurons in the hippocampus – the part of the brain responsible for memory formation, motivation and emotion, could root out any information we learned previously. Researchers believe this may provide clues as to why childhood memories are hard to recall.
New neurons are developed rapidly in the hippocampus and it slows down with age. The same happens to mice and several other mammals. So when one is in childhood, he/she tends to forget what was learned a day/week/month ago; on the contrary, since neuron growths are slow in adults, they tend to remember more of the things happened during their adulthood.
It was previously shown that increasing neural proliferation before learning can improve memory formation in adult mice. However, as the new study suggests – after something is learned, neuron growth in hippocampus can erase those memories.
It’s obvious no one wants to recall bad memories, neuron growth really helps you with that and is not at all bad as it gives room for new memories.
Fascinating topic. Thanks for liking Nutsrok.
LikeLike
OK, you two smartypants: then how do we explain some people who have almost total recall of their childhoods ? My mate Maggie Wilson (http://mcwilson1956.wordpress.com/) is amazing, as is Barbara Pyett (barbarapyett.wordpress.com/): they’re two women whose childhoods seem to be open books to them. What does your reading tell you about this ? 😀
AND ALSO ! – how do I insert a link into a Comment ?
LikeLike
Yeah, either their neurons are matured or are replaced slowly. Everyone is born different and there are even super-humans. 😉
LikeLike
Oh, You meant the link like this? Just put the html code, you seem to know HTML/HTML5 pretty well. Anything works on the comment box, it’s like a body of the HTML page. 😉
LikeLike
But as you can see, one of my links worked and one didn’t. Because one carried over the ‘http://’ and one didn’t. :-
LikeLike
It’s likely that you removed the “http://” after it had been pasted. Any changes in the link (copied from the address bar) after being pasted will void the link. I am no expert in this, but that’s what I observed while making article.
LikeLike
I never have had the ability to remember much from childhood and still can’t. I’m going to take this as a good sign that I’m still creating neurons. Hooray!
LikeLike
That’s perfectly normal and it indeed is a good sign. 😉
LikeLike
Reblogged this on mybandstand.
LikeLike
the technology is built in to be a blank mind – stillness – living as we do in extreme sometime of go-go-go a system over loaded functions still but the body-mind swoops us from thought to thought directing inappropriately a sense of attack and defense – rebelliously turing in deceiving strategy from spirit
LikeLike
Thanks for the comment. 😉
LikeLike
I need new memories retained, where’s my keys? my wallet ? my glasses? my…?
LikeLike
It will be hard for grown-ups. Maybe, trying to forget the past will encourage formation of new neurons, just saying. 😀
LikeLike
This is surprising! I have forgotten many bad times in my 20s, but have many happy childhood memories…. This leaves some questions!
LikeLike
Maybe, your neurons are reverse ageing? That’s weird because that’s the exact opposite of what’s claimed by the research. 😛
LikeLike
Oh look ! What a scream, Ba ! I just quoted you below – except that I managed to stuff up the link … :-
LikeLike
Gosh. That’s timely. I’m trying to tease out earliest memories (well…early memories) in a post I’m preparing.
LikeLike
Well, that’s an awesome coincidence, Simon! 🙂
LikeLike
And might be also the cause why genius tend to forget things easily with this rapid growth of neurons… Maybe!
LikeLike
Exactly. Check out #16 of this post. http://sparkonit.com/2014/01/10/are-you-a-genius-read-these-signs-and-find-out/
Thanks for your time. 🙂
LikeLike