The human brain can create memories before the age of three, but they remain in consciously inaccessible areas.
- The first years of life leave no trace in our memory.
- However, these memories exist in our brain, but remain inaccessible.
- Several theories attempt to explain this phenomenon of childhood amnesia.
What remains of our first years of life in the brain? For a long time, scientists thought that babies’ brains were not capable of lasting memories. Since then, other research has shown that they do exist, but that they remain inaccessible. An article from the magazine Science reviews the latest advances on this subject.
Childhood memories: what is childhood amnesia?
Sigmund Freud gave a name to the disappearance of memories from our first years of life: infantile amnesia. “Studies have shown that many other mammals also experience it, suggesting that it is not linked to language or self-awareness, specifies Sara Reardon of the magazine Science. Instead, this forgetting likely serves an evolutionary purpose, whether it is helping young brains learn to attach the correct importance to events or developing a framework for the memory systems they will use throughout life. throughout their life.”
At the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Germany, childhood amnesia specialist Sarah Power is leading the first prospective study of how children’s ability to remember develops over the years. Its objective is to understand when the brain becomes capable of forming accessible long-term memories. At the moment, she estimates this would happen around 20 months. Other experiments, by other scientific teams, have shown that these memories are not completely inaccessible, but that specific stimuli are needed to revive them.
Childhood amnesia: a complex phenomenon
However, researchers struggle to understand the precise reason why these memories disappear. One theory is that the overpressure of these serves to give more power to the brain and hippocampus to grow. Also, this could be the consequence of the learning process: at that moment, children’s brains prioritize global learning rather than memorizing very precise details. The process of neurogenesis, i.e. the formation of new neurons, could also contribute to the erasure of certain memories from our consciousness: the new neurons would in some way overwrite the old ones and thus block this part of our memory. Finally, this could be the consequence of brain evolution: this organ changes and evolves, and this could lead to certain memories being blocked in inaccessible places.
Why is baby memory of interest to science?
Better understanding this process and its consequences is a challenge for scientists. “I think there is much to be gained by thinking of the infant brain not just as a more limited version of an adult brain, but as a machine that might even operate with different rules than the adult brain.”explains Flavio Donato, neuroscientist at the University of Basel in Science.
Ultimately, this will allow us to better understand how the brain functions and therefore the various disorders that can affect it, particularly those that affect our cognitive abilities.