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The inability to "travel mentally in time" is the most recent memory disorder that intrigues researchers. Although most sufferers do not realize it, it may be more common than we think. 19659002] Susie McKinnon does not remember her childhood or any other stage of her previous life in which she now lives at the age of 60. Nor remember special events. He knows that he went to his nephew's wedding. She knows that her husband accompanied her. But he does not remember being there.
In fact, has very few memories of his life, although he does not have amnesia. to badume that our minds work like those of others. In general, we do not discuss the feeling of memory. And McKinnon badumed that when people told stories of their past, they invented details to entertain others.
It was not until a friend practicing medicine asked her if she could take a memory test as part of her studies. they both realized that McKinnon had no autobiographical memory.
After that, McKinnon investigated amnesia, but the stories of people who lost their memory as a result of brain disease or brain injury did not reflect your experience. remembered that events had happened, she did not know how had to live them
.
A New Syndrome
A little over a decade ago, after fracturing her foot, she searched for time-consuming activities and began reading research on mental journeys over the past decade. time and makes the decision to contact a researcher in this area.
The day he wrote an e-mail to Brian Levine, a scientist in the memory of The Rotman Research Institute in Baycrest, Toronto, she was nervous. For Levine, it was one of the most interesting days of his career. And the result of their communication was the identification of a new syndrome: Severe deficit of autobiographical memory .
Humans have the extraordinary ability to travel mentally [19659007] at the time come and go in our minds at will. Do not forget that when you were in elementary school, or imagine that next week you will be sitting on a towel on the beach watching the dolphins swim to the horizon. Probably not only do you imagine the facts of these scenarios, but also the experience of being there, and that is precisely what McKinnon can not do.
As Brian Levine told me in the BBC radio show, All in the spirit "for her, past events are lived almost as if they had happened in the third person as if they had been past experiences of another person. "
And to some extent we all do this, forgetting most of what happens to us, but for McKinnon, it's a lot more extreme.
Why is it different from amnesia?
This syndrome is very different from amnesia, that usually occurs after a particular event or brain injury and prevents the person from retaining new information to create new memories.
Persons with severe autobiographical memory deficit syndrome (or abbreviated SDAM). English) can learn and keep new information, but this information lacks the richness of a real experience.
If McKinnon remembers details of an event, it's because she saw a picture or she deliberately learned the story of what happened. He can not visualize having been there nor what he wore or who he was with.
"It could have been someone else who would have attended a family wedding and not I. I do not have the proof that I was there, I do not have it. feeling that it was something that I had done, "said McKinnon in Everything in the Mind [19459-91] to Relive the Best Moments of Life The advantage is that also can not remember the pain badociated with bad experiences. Difficult times, such as the death of a parent, are just as intense right now, but over time, the feeling is growing.
emotion that made it uncomfortable at first instance
As for the cause, the researchers have so far found no disease or no trauma badociated with this problem and concluded that people are simply born this way. Although Levine and his team continue to study possible links with other disorders.
Inability to Mentally Visualize
McKinnon also has fantasy, this means that he can not visualize images. It is difficult to know for sure if this prevents you from keeping intense memories from other people. Decades of memory research have shown that we are rebuilding an event in the spirit every time we remember it, but we do not know if we all do it the same way.
Some may see a picture or video in the mind, others may think. more in terms of abstract ideas or facts.
Catherine Loveday, a professor of cognitive neuroscience at the University of Westminster, wonders if there are similarities in our early memories. We can remember events that happened to us before the age of three, because we could have heard about it or see pictures. But we have trouble remembering how the experience was felt.
For the moment, it is unclear what is the prevalence of SDAM, although Levine and his team are trying to find out by means of an online survey. 5,000 people have already participated and many say they believe they have this problem. Even though it is a self-selected sample, the figures suggest that might be more common than we think.
Levine's team studies the idea that autobiographical memory might be in a spectrum in which SDAM would be at an extreme, while people with a very good autobiographical memory, who seldom forget something so commonplace, would end up in each other.
If SDAM does not affect the way you live your life, probably not.
In the case of McKinnon, she has always lived like this, so know that it is a disorder that probably has all her life. It's just an interesting fact that gives meaning to the differences that I've sometimes noticed between her and the others. Now he understands, for example, that others do not invent stories.
"My experience has never been different, so for me, it's not a loss ," he said.
"Like never before, I've had that ability (remembering something from the past or seeing events in detail), I can not blame myself."
And McKinnon sees a Another advantage is not thinking about the past or dreaming about the future.
I know that many people have trouble accepting the idea of being in the present moment, but for me it is the simplest thing because is the only way my brain works . So, I am still living at the moment. all the time ".
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