http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/200 ... yahoorefer

MRIs reveal possible source of woman's super-memory
A Southern California man employed in the entertainment business is the fourth person verified by scientists to have an ultra-rare memory gift: He recalls in detail most days of his life, as well as the day and date of key public events, says Larry Cahill, who co-leads a project on people with super-memory.

The name of the latest "bona fide" won't be released by scientists because he's a research subject, but he is free to identify himself.

Meanwhile, MRI scans on Jill Price, 43, the Los Angeles religious school administrator who in 2006 was the first person confirmed to have such an ability, reveal two abnormally large areas in her brain. That discovery could lead to breakthroughs on how memories are formed and kept, says Cahill, a neuroscientist at the University of California-Irvine. Price went public last year with the publication of her book, The Woman Who Can't Forget.

LOOKING BACK: Decades of details flood woman's memory

The two magnified areas in Price's brain are the caudate nuclei — typically used for memory when forming automatic habits — and a part of the temporal lobe that stores facts, dates and events, Cahill told USA TODAY.
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These two areas of the brain may be working together, in a way unknown before, to make detailed recall of every day as automatic as remembering to brush your teeth in the morning or put on a seat belt, the research team speculates.

When Price first met the team eight years ago, "it seemed more of a scientific curiosity," Cahill says. "Now what we're looking at is a new chapter in the book on memories and the brain."

Hundreds of potential subjects have contacted the researchers, offering to be screened, he says. "Two or three look like the real McCoy" based on phone tests.

In addition to Price and the latest subject, the team also has verified the gift in Brad Williams of La Crosse, Wis., and Rick Baron of suburban Cleveland.

Unlike Price, the three men are left-handed, and they're not troubled by their rare ability, Cahill says. Price feels tormented by her onslaught of memories. She sees daily life in a kind of "split-screen," with present-day events, songs, smells, even TV programs cuing her back to detailed memories that she can't squelch. Gender differences in the brain could account for the differences, Cahill believes.

The larger areas in Price's brain almost certainly explain her rare gift, which was probably present at birth, says Brian Levine, a memory expert with Rotman Research Institute-Baycrest Centre at the University of Toronto.

Scientists now need to find out how the two large brain areas are connected so they can work together. "This may be a key piece of the puzzle as to how memory works, and that can be used in future research to help people with memory disorders," Levine says.

This interests me because I am able to remember daily events vividly. Not so much to the point that I can remember specific dates with great clarity. Sometimes I feel burdened by not being able to forget about things and the things I am often cued to recall.

I have a really good memory for details. Stuff like what actor was in what movie.

Rainman?

Haha, it would suck to be a savant.

It's crazy the amount of information a human memory contains. It must be equivalent to hundreds, maybe thousands of terabytes.

My own memory is very strange. My most vivid memories are from the 4 years I was in the Marines. I can recall details about pretty much any day or any place that I was. I remember what happened and what I saw with clarity. I hardly remember anything from 18 and earlier though. I remember little more than bits and pieces from high school or middle school. And strangely I don't remember the past 3 years as well as the 4 previous to that.

I think I've read about this before, but I can't remember.

My gf has a fucking ridiculous memory. She remembers the name of every single person that she was in high school with, of all grades. She works in hospital administration and she remembers names, addresses, social security numbers, and medical information for easily a hundred people, probably a lot more. She also remembers entire conversations from when she was 5-6 years old. It's really scary.

The Jill Price lady named in the story was on NPR Science Friday a few months ago. Very interesting. BTW, she considers this ability to be as much of a curse as a gift, if not more so.

This Jill Price lady is a bit beyond just having a good memory. I remember reading in a National Geographic magazine about her and how her mind is basically like a video recorder and she can go back and recall any point in her life. Any point. Not just a few here and there, but every one. Crazy stuff.

From wikipedia:

Jill Price (born in December 1965) is the only woman known to science who is able to recite, and thereby relive, all the days of her life since she was fourteen years old[1]. She remembers every sad or happy moment, from the dinners she ate to the current affairs of the day. Parts of Price's brain are three times the size of those in other women her age, brain scans show.[2] Price's condition is called hyperthymestic syndrome, meaning that she has a superior memory and that the enlarged parts of her brain are areas also associated with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). The first report on the study of her brain was published in 2006.[3] She has written a book called The Woman Who Can't Forget: The Extraordinary Story of Living with the Most Remarkable Memory Known to Science—A Memoir (ISBN 1416561765), explaining her life with the condition.[2]

this ability is definitely a double-edged sword... i somewhat doubt i would want this.

why didn't she keep her mouth shut & get on JEOPARDY! or Millionair, or don't forget the lyrics, or any of those.

Kim Peek, the real-life inspiration for Rainman, isn't one of the "super memory" people, but he does have one ridiculous memory ability that has always astounded me:

He read books, memorized them, and then placed them upside down on the shelf to show that he had finished reading them, a practice he still maintains. He reads a book in about an hour and remembers approximately 98.7% of everything he has read, memorizing vast amounts of information in subjects ranging from history and literature, geography, and numbers to sports, music, and dates. He can recall the content of some 12,000 books from memory.

But at the same time he can't remember where the silverware drawer is in his kitchen. So there's a catch (a lot of them, obviously).

maybe he should read a book about his silverware drawer

See, this is something I'm glad I don't have. If I was high and had that kind of memory, I would be screwed every time.

smoking isn't fun for me at all

That's exaclty what I was going to say

couldn't he get a friend to write down a lot of this "mundane" stuff so that he can remember it?

that would be pretty sad if they have not thought of trying that

I'm assuming stuff like that's been tried, but I don't know. I'm going to guess that it wouldn't matter. I doubt that Kim Peek has any clue what any of the information he memorizes means, or how to apply it to the world. He just remembers it. If he read a book about his silverware drawer he could probably recite it word for word, but he wouldn't have a clue as to what it meant or how to apply it to finding a fork.

I have seen a special on that guy. It seems that like someone said, his recall has nothing to do with his functionality. As in, he could absorb book after book about the geography of the Grand Canyon but would still be totally lost if he found himself there. His dad has to take constant care of him, but I'm pretty sure they get paid to go around and "show off" his memory, so it's not all bad. His powers of recall really are astounding, though. He can get down to individual sentences in enormous books.