As a result of his illness, the musician lost most of his childhood memories and thus all connections with his own past. In fact, he could not remember events in his life that happened only minutes earlier. He would greet his wife, whom he may have seen only moments before, as if he hadn't seen her for a long time. His tragic case shows how much we rely on our memories for hundreds of tasks we do every day, without being consciously aware of the process. Tuesday Long-term memory consists of all the countless tiny pieces of information we need to make sense of our world.
Researchers think our memories are organized like a filing system.
There may be several pathways that lead us to the same memory. Wednesday The protagonist in Proust's novel In Search of Lost Time suddenly remembers a childhood memory while eating a pastry and drinking tea with his mother. Something about the subtle smells and tastes he experienced in that instant suddenly brought back a memory he never knew he carried with him. Perhaps you've had the same kind of experience. Today, researchers believe that different parts of the brain cooperate to analyze the sights, sounds, smells and other attributes of a memorable event.