Proust, move over. A woman known as "AJ" remembers every day of her life since she was 14. So unusual is she that neuroscientists have coined a new term--"hyperthymestic syndrome"--for someone in whom "remembering dominates her life."
AJ, now in her early 40s, caught the attention of neuroscientist James McGaugh of the University of California, Irvine, in 2000 when she sent him an e-mail saying "since I was eleven, I have had this unbelievable ability to recall my past." The memories, she wrote, are "nonstop, uncontrollable, and totally exhausting."
Over the next 5 years, McGaugh and colleagues gave her various tests. Once, for example, they asked her to recall the previous 24 Easters. In 10 minutes, she came up with the dates as well as details of her activities. Every date but one was accurate. "She sort of has a vacuum cleaner sucking up all of the personal experiences and storing them away so that they're available," says McGaugh.
The researchers say AJ differs from other cases of extraordinary memory because hers is all about her own life--unlike autistic savants who can recall vast amounts of irrelevant information or calculate dates far in the future. Tests do show that AJ may have impairment in the left frontal lobe, like people with autism or obsessive-compulsive disorder. But AJ, who has average intelligence, has managed to graduate from college, hold jobs, and get married, researchers report in the February issue of Neurocase.
Some researchers are skeptical that AJ's abilities are all that unusual. Cognitive neuropsychologist Stephen Christman of the University of Toledo in Ohio says they may result from a combination of natural retentiveness and a tendency to obsess over her memories for hours every day. McGaugh says the team plans to do brain scans to see whether areas involved in memory look different in AJ.
CREDIT: CHAD BAKER/PHOTODISC GREEN
