Summer picks: Where do our early childhood memories go?

In this episode of Science Weekly, Ian Sample interviews Professor Nick Turk-Browne about infantile amnesia, the phenomenon where people can't remember events from their early childhood. Professor Turk-Browne discusses his research using fMRI to study memory formation in infants, revealing that the hippocampus shows increased activity related to memory encoding around 12 months of age. The discussion explores whether early memories are not encoded, are encoded but inaccessible, or fade due to deficiencies in later stages of memory formation like consolidation. The research involves tracking babies' responses to familiar and new images and analyzing home videos to understand how long these early memories persist, with preliminary results suggesting memories may last into preschool age. The conversation also touches on the potential adaptive benefits of infantile amnesia and the role of language and self-awareness in memory encoding and retrieval.