Most people are unable to remember events from early childhood due to a phenomenon called infantile amnesia. Researchers believe this is because the parts of the brain responsible for long-term memory, such as the hippocampus and amygdala, are not fully developed in early childhood. As a result, early memories are often lost and replaced as children experience many new events and their brains learn new things. While memories can be reinforced through photos or stories from others, it is normal for memories from the first few years of life to fade over time.

1. Why can't we remember being babies?
Title page
Why can't We remember being
Babies?

2. Do you remember your first birthday party? Most people don't. Why is that?

3. WHAT IF…
It's easy to recall events of
decades past—birthdays, high
school graduations, visits to
Grandma—Yet who can remember
being a baby? Researchers have
tried for more than a century to
identify the cause of “infantile
amnesia.”

5. Chances are you don't remember your first or second
birthday party -- or a host of other events that occurred in early
childhood -- and you're not alone. It's normal to forget your
earliest life experiences, despite their crucial and influential
nature.
Most adults can't recall life's earliest moments unless the
events are reinforced by others who often retell them, or the
memories are triggered by photographs or other cues.

6. It's a phenomenon scientists call childhood
infantile amnesia. While you may have been able
to recall and describe your second birthday party in
great detail for months after it happened, a year
later those memories may have faded and,
eventually, are lost altogether.
Researchers point to a high turnover rate of
childhood memories as one possible culprit,
believing that a raft of new experiences simply
means some early memories are forced to fall by the
wayside.

7. LAYERS
It happens because the limbic system (most
importantly the hippocampus and amygdala)
which is one of the main components in long
term memory creation and recall is not fully
developed.

9. Researchers point to a high turnover rate
of childhood memories as one possible culprit,
believing that a raft of new experiences simply
means some early memories are forced to fall
by the wayside.

10. However, Kheirbek ;Researcher of Harvard
University , points out that it might not be the new
neurons themselves but the new learning that new
neurons allow that makes the difference. "Perhaps the
forgetting seen here is actually due to the increased
ability to learn new things," he says. "So there is a
tradeoff there, preserving the older memories may come
at the cost of making new ones."

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