For years, scientists believed that our first memories vanished due to the brain’s development not being mature enough to store them. However, groundbreaking Yale research suggests otherwise.
Researchers found that infants can encode and recall memories – even if they’re inaccessible later in life. Using brain scans and eye-tracking, the team discovered that when an infant’s hippocampus is more active while viewing a new image, they’re more likely to remember it later.
This discovery challenges the idea of “infantile amnesia” and raises the question: Could our earliest experiences still be hidden deep in our minds, just beyond reach? The study, published in Science, suggests that memories can indeed be encoded in the brain during infancy.
The researchers presented infants with new images and later tested their recognition. They found that when an infant’s hippocampus was more active upon first seeing an image, the child was more likely to recognize it later. This effect was strongest among infants over 12 months old, suggesting a complete theory of how the hippocampus develops to support learning and memory.
The study also explored different types of memories in infants – statistical learning and episodic memory. Statistical learning deals with extracting patterns across events, while episodic memory involves specific events. The researchers found that episodic memory is encoded later than statistical learning.
What happens to early memories? Researchers suggest it’s possible they may not be converted into long-term storage or simply fade away. However, some infants might remember their experiences until preschool age before losing them.
The new findings provide an important connection and raise the possibility that early memories could endure in some form into adulthood, despite being inaccessible.
Source: https://scitechdaily.com/your-earliest-memories-might-still-exist-science-just-found-the-clues