Memories are primarily lost to interference. Once one memory is taken over by another memory, restoring the old memory is only possible be re-learning. Post-interference re-learning is, at least in part, based on laying down new memories.
As to whether or not memories are lost forever, Dr. Komaroff says that was once the thought based on what the medical community knows about Alzheimer's disease. The belief now is that memory loss is fitful and that your memories are not lost forever but in an area of the brain that is harder to access.
In many cases, it may be reversible with treatment. For example, memory loss from medications may resolve with a change in medication. Nutritional supplements can be useful against memory loss caused by a nutritional deficiency. And treating depression may be helpful for memory when depression is a factor.
New Neurons and Old Memories
Irina Calin-Jageman, a researcher at Dominican University, is a co-leader of the “Slug Squad” lab that has found evidence that active forgetting processes in the brain do not always completely erase memories. “Everything isn't just gradually, completely gone,” she said.
Forgetting may happen when the connections between neurons are not as strong. In a sense, thoughts memories may not go anywhere, they may just become more difficult to access. It may seem pointless, but forgetting is very important.
This means a person would remember getting a dog, but not the appearance of Halley's Comet. Psychologists have debated the age of adults' earliest memories. To date, estimates have ranged from 2 to 6–8 years of age, although most modern data suggests somewhere between the ages 2 and 4 on average.
Dissociative amnesia is a memory disorder. You can't remember information about your life. This may happen after you live through trauma or a stressful situation. A person with this condition has large gaps in their memory.
Not remembering trauma can be a coping mechanism, which is when the brain protects someone from experiencing the intense feelings associated with memory. So instead of a clear, detailed memory, someone may have gaps or only remember vague sensory aspects, like a color or smell.
Memories are destined to fade, and the brains we use to recall them will eventually shut down completely. Although you cannot make memories last forever, there are many things you can do to improve memory storage and recollection, and hopefully your most important memories will last a lifetime.
Long-term memory is defined as memory that can last anywhere from a few days to a lifetime. In terms of structure and function, it differs from working memory or short-term memory which last anywhere from a quarter of a second to 30 seconds.
While some are unable to recall a small period of time, others are missing entire years of their life. Along with memory loss, other signs of repressed trauma can include low self-esteem, substance abuse disorders, increased physical or mental illnesses, and interpersonal problems.
Trauma Blocking: Driven to Distract After a painful experience, some people may choose to face their feelings head-on while others would rather forget. The latter can manifest as trauma blocking, where someone chooses to block and drown out painful feelings that hang around after an ordeal.
Unpredictable emotions, flashbacks, relationship problems and physical symptoms like headaches or nausea are some of the ways that unresolved trauma can manifest, according to the American Psychological Association.
It is possible for people to have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) without memory of the trauma event, such as in drug-facilitated sexual assault. However, there is little evidence available on treatment provision for this population.
Signs of PTSD
To determine whether you or a loved one may have PTSD that stems from childhood trauma, the following are some of the more common symptoms: Reliving the event over in your mind or nightmares. Becoming upset when there's a reminder of the event. Intense and ongoing fear, sadness, and helplessness.
The reason for this is a phenomenon known as childhood or infantile amnesia—the natural and gradual loss of memories from the first few years of life. Childhood amnesia is normal. In fact, if you try to recall your own experiences of being a preschooler, you can probably only conjure up hazy images.
Trouble with total recall can come from many physical and mental conditions not related to aging, like dehydration, infections, and stress. Other causes include medications, substance abuse, poor nutrition, depression, anxiety, and thyroid imbalance.
The inability to remember important details about your life is called dissociative amnesia. The National Alliance on Mental Health(NAMI) states that “dissociative amnesia may surround a particular event, such as combat, or abuse, or more rarely, information about identity and life history.
Our ability to remember new information peaks in our 20s, and then starts to decline noticeably from our 50s or 60s.
Memories: from birth to adolescence
Can you remember your first birthday? Your second? Adults rarely remember events from before the age of three, and have patchy memories when it comes to things that happened to them between the ages of three and seven. It's a phenomenon known as 'infantile amnesia'.
It's common for people to forget all memories before age four. If you don't have early childhood memories, it may be normal. However, some people can't remember anything or only remember limited events from their childhood before age 12. In this case, memory loss may be due to traumatic events.
For some people, the tremors are big movements in the muscles. For others, they are tiny contractions that feel like electrical frequencies moving through the body. TRE® is not painful—in fact, most people enjoy the sensations.