Researchers find out why people don’t remember becoming a baby.

For decades, scientists have been embarrassed by simple questions. Why can’t I remember becoming a baby? Even if infants learn early in the early days, most people can’t remember anything before the age of three. This common phenomenon, known as infant memory loss, has made the researchers discuss whether the baby has not formed memory or simply forgotten over time.

Recent research challenges the idea that there is no early memory. Groundbreaking Yale University The brain of infants suggests that the experience encodes the experience, but as the brain matures, these memories may be incompatible. This discovery can reconstruct our understanding of memory formation and provide clues about how memory search works later.

The hippocampus, the deep -small hippocampus structure of the brain, plays an important role in forming and searching episode memories related to certain events, places and people. In adults, damage to the hippocampus leads to serious memory loss, making it difficult to remember personal experiences. Scientists have been arguing for a long time, whether the infant hippocampus has been developed enough to encode this type of memory.

The early theory suggested that the infant hippocampus is too immature to store the memories of episodes. This idea is based on the fact that the memory circuit of the brain, known as the Trisynaptic path, is still developing early.

Some studies have also strengthened their belief that the young brain cannot encode the experience properly, compared with adults who have damaged infant memory.

But new research suggests that it is not. Behavioral studies show that infants can remember a particular event for several days, weeks or months contradicting the idea that the brain cannot store memory. But so far, the direct evidence of the brain itself has been lacking.

In the latest studies published in the journal scienceThe researchers used the functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) to measure the brain activity of 4-25 months of infant while looking at images of faces, objects and scenes. By analyzing whether infants have seen a familiar image later compared to the new image, scientists can decide whether the memory is encoded.

The results showed that when the hippocampus was more active during the first appearance of the image, the baby was more likely to recognize it later.

The findings suggest that 12 months of young infants can encode episodes in the same area of ​​the hippocampus that adults use to store memory. Specifically, the activity of the rear hippocampus (closer to the back of the head) was associated with stronger memory encoding. This area is also important for adult episodes, and strengthens the idea that the brain of infants uses a similar mechanism.

But young infants showed different patterns. Less than 12 months old, it does not indicate the same memory -related brain activity and suggests that the hippocampus circuit is still developing.

These results are consistent with past research on statistical learning. Statistical learning, another type of memory that helps infants to recognize the pattern of the environment. This type of learning related to other hippocampus paths appear earlier than episode memories and helps the baby understand language, objects and social signals.

Nick Turk-Browne, the senior author of Yale and Yale’s psychological professor, said, “The feature of these memories that we call the memory of the episode is that it can be explained to others.

By showing that infant hippocampus can encode memories, the study focuses on the reason why the baby can store memory.

Why don’t you remember to be a baby if you can encode your memories? Researchers believe that the answer is in a way that stores and searches memories over time.

One possibility is that the initial memory is not delivered to long -term storage and can be faded before it hardens. Another explanation is that these memories remain in the brain, but they cannot be accessible when they develop.

Animal research provides interesting clues. A study on rodents shows that the memory formed in early childhood leaves a continuous cell trace of memory yen in the hippocampus. If a young animal seems to have forgotten, these traces remain. In some cases, the memory recall can be restored through a specific signal or a direct stimulus of such an engram.

Interestingly, rapid nerve generation (new neuron growth) that occurs in infancy can interfere with memory search. Some scientists believe that when a new neuron is integrated into the hippocampus, it is more difficult to interfere with the existing memory circuit and approach early memory. This can still be stored, but it can explain why the memory of infancy disappears.

Turk-Brown and his team are currently testing whether infants, infants and preschoolers can remember their infant experience. Preliminary results suggest that some of these memories can eventually last in childhood before they are inaccessible.

Turk-Browne said, “Tristan’s work is very compatible with the evidence of recent animals that infants’ memory loss is a search issue.

The new discovery challenges the traditional view that the brain is too immature to form memory, which leads to the loss of memory of infants. Instead, they suggest that the initial memory is encoded, but it is difficult to search as the brain develops. This can have a wider impact on understanding memory disorders, childhood development and memory improvement skills.

Future research aims to identify major factors that affect long -term memory by tracking the development of infancy’s memory. If scientists can determine why initial memory cannot be accessible, you can later find a way to improve memory search in life later.

This study also raises a fascinating question. Can the memories of forgotten infants still exist somewhere in the brain? Searching them is still difficult, but ongoing research can reveal whether these lost memories are truly disappearing or simply hidden and waiting for unlocking.