Unlocking Infantile Amnesia: A Year-Old's Hippocampus Lights Up
2025-03-25
A new study using fMRI scanned the brains of 26 infants aged 4 to 25 months, attempting to solve the century-old mystery of infantile amnesia. The research found that around the age of one, the hippocampus, responsible for memory formation, becomes active, generating neural signals related to things the infants remembered from tests. This suggests that babies begin encoding memories around the age of one, even as their hippocampus is still developing. The study provides valuable clues to understanding early brain development and memory formation, hinting that we may one day be able to retrieve lost memories from our infancy.
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