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Susie McKinnon has very few memories of her life, but she does not have amnesia.
The inability to "mentally travel in time" is the newest memory disorder that intrigues researchers, and while most sufferers do not realize it, it may be that it's more common than we think.
Susie McKinnon does not remember her childhood or any other stage of her previous life in which she currently 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 He has very few memories of his life, even though he has no amnesia.
For many years, McKinnon had no idea of the difference because we tend to think that our mind works like everyone else. In general, we do not discuss the feeling of memory. And McKinnon assumed that when people told stories of their past, they invented the details to entertain others.
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Until a practicing medical friend asks her if she can do a memory test as part of her studies, both realize that McKinnon He lacked autobiographical memory.
After that, McKinnon investigated amnesia, but the stories of people who lost their memory as a result of an illness or brain injury did not reflect their experience. She could remember that the events had happened, simply I did not remember How was to live them.
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People with severe autobiographical memory deficit may remember that an event has occurred, but they can not evoke the lived experience.
A new syndrome
A little over ten years ago, after fracturing his foot, he sought out activities to pass the time, began reading research on mental journeys in time and made the decision to contact a research scientist in this field.
The day he wrote an email to Brian Levine, scientist of the memory of the Rotman Research Institute at 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.
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Humans have the extraordinary capacity mentally traveling in the the weather come and go in our minds at will. Do not forget 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 your presence, and that is precisely what McKinnon can not do.
As Brian Levine told me on the BBC radio show, Everything in the spirit, "for her, past events are lived almost as if they had arrived in the third personas if they had been the past experiences of another person ".
And to a certain extent, we all do this, forgetting most things that happen to us, but for McKinnon, it's a lot more extreme.
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The cause of severe autobiographical memory deficiency syndrome is unknown until now.
How is it different from amnesia?
This syndrome it's very different from amnesia, which usually occurs after a particular event or brain injury and makes it difficult for the person to keep new information in order to create new memories.
People with Autobiographical Memory Impairment Syndrome (or SDAM) can learn and keep new information, but this information lacks the richness of real life.
If McKinnon can remember the details of an event, it's because she's seen a photo or she's deliberately learned a story about what's happened. past. You can not visualize having been there, or what he was wearing, or who he was with.
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For McKinnon, past events memorize them as if they had arrived at someone else.
"It may be someone else who has attended a family wedding and not I. In my mind, I have no proof of my presence there, I do not have feel like doing it, "said McKinnon. Everything in the spirit.
It means that McKinnon can not feel the nostalgia to relive the best moments of life. The advantage is that Nor can he remember the pain associated with bad experiences. Hard times, such as the death of a parent, are equally intense at the time, but over time, the feeling fades.
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This can make her a better person, since she does not hold a grudge because she can not evoke the emotion that made her feel bad in the first place.
As far as the cause is concerned, researchers have so far found no disease or injury related to this problem and They conclude that people are born that way. Although Levine and his team continue to study the possible links with other disorders.
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Afantasía is the inability to view images.
Inability to visualize mentally
McKinnon also afantasía, it means that you can not view the images. It is difficult to know for sure if this prevents you from keeping intense memories in relation to other people. Decades of memory research have shown that we are rebuilding an event in the mind every time we remember it, but we do not know if we all do it the same way.
Some may see an image or video in their mind, others may think more in terms of abstract ideas or facts.
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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 It is difficult for us to remember how the experience was felt.
At the moment, the prevalence of SDAM is unknown, although Levine and his team are trying to find out through an online survey. 5000 people have already participated and many say they think they have this problem. Although this is a self-selected sample, the figures suggest that This could be more common than we think.
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An advantage of not remembering the emotions of past events for McKinnon is also to remember the pain.
The Levine team is studying the idea that autobiographical memory could be in a spectrum where the SDAM would be at an extreme, while those with a very good autobiographical memory, who seldom forget something so commonplace, would end up in the other.
So, does it matter if you have this problem?
If SDAM does not affect your way of life, probably not.
In McKinnon's case, she has always lived this way. Therefore, to know that she is suffering from troubles that probably have her whole life is only an interesting fact that gives meaning to the differences she has sometimes noticed between her and the others. Now he understands, for example, that others do not invent stories.
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McKinnon does not think of the past and dreams only of the future.
"My experience has never been different, so for me it's not a loss"he said.
"Since I've never had this ability (remembering something in the past or viewing events in detail), I can not blame myself."
And McKinnon sees another benefit: not thinking about the past or dreaming about the future.
"I know a lot of people are struggling with this notion of being in the present moment, but for me it's the simplest because it's the only way my brain works. So I still live the moment, All the time"
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