You can recall everything that happened during prom night, but you can't remember where you left your keys last night. You check your watch. Fifteen seconds later, you can't remember the time. And just when you figure your memory is shot, you recall with ease where you put the lawn rake three years ago.
Human memory is a bewildering marvel, capable of miraculous feats and frustrating failures.
Lynch, a psychobiologist at UCI's Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, is among the world's leading brain scientists. He and colleagues have discovered what they believe is the process by which memory is stored in the brain, and they have devised an experimental drug, Ampakine, which they say increases learning speed and retention in rats. The university has licensed an Irvine pharmaceuticals firm to develop Ampakine as a possible prescription drug, hoping it will increase memory in mild cases of dementia, stroke and Alzheimer's disease. So far, its effect in people is untested. But this is only the latest development in brain research, Lynch says.