• Question: Why can't we remember things as a baby?

    Asked by anisahkhan to Indi, Jarv, John, Ken, Vicky on 14 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Ken Dutton-Regester

      Ken Dutton-Regester answered on 14 Mar 2012:

      I think it’s because when you are young your nueral (brain) networks are still forming and your memory cells are not up to scratch. Don’t quote me on that though.

    • Photo: Vicky Young

      Vicky Young answered on 14 Mar 2012:

      The hippocampus is a brain structure thought to be crucially involved in the formation of memory for facts and events. At birth and in early childhood this structure is not fully grown, and so memories of being a baby cannot form.

      What’s interesting is that the brain structure for emotional memory, the amygdala, is mature in babies – so we can remember emotions we felt as a baby just not any facts about the memory, like who was there, what we were doing etc.

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