The main source that I will be referring to in my discussion of memory, is a documentary called The Mystery of Memoryproduced, directed by Edward Gray and Michael Schwarz. The documentary focuses on three different cases, but I will refer to only one that I found particularly interesting.
The story begins with a 43 year old woman living in LA. Her memory works in a spectacular way, enabling her to recall anything that has happened in her life since she turned 12. Price can recall not only factual information like dates when events took place, but also the dates/specific details of the emotional events that happened to her. The downside of her unusual episodic memory capacity, is that she cannot forget the bad things either, such as the death of her husband.
In an attempt to understand why she remembers everything, James McGaugh and Larry Cahill (Ph.D in Psychology, University of California, Irvine) conducted a series of tests and experiments. What they did was they took brain scans of Price and other subjects with similar cognitive abilities in order to identify the brain structures of the patients. As a result, they have identified that some brain regions of the subjects were significantly larger when compared to controls, and according to McGaugh, the same areas in the brain are enlarged when a patient is diagnosed with an OCD disorder. A quick google search showed me that the brain areas associated with OCD disorder are : the orbitofrontal cortext, the anterior cingulate cortex (both are located in front of the brain), the thalamus and the striatum (GRAY and ESCHERICH). Reading on further about the symptoms of a person with OCD, it is suggested that the unpleasant thoughts are dismissed by normal people, while in a patient with OCD, the unpleasant thought gets “stuck”. This makes me wonder whether a similar process occurred with Jill Price: perhaps her memories failed to pass through a filter process which is present in most people, and that allows us to forget the events at least partially. However, this comparison is only an afterthought, as patients with OCD are greater in their number while Jill Price cases are rare and considered exceptional.
I went on a little further with my google search in order to find out what happens in the brain as memory fades. From the earlier readings, I remember that a memory is formed when an electrical signal is passed from one neuron to another. The ability to store a memory is also referred to as the strengthening or weakening of the synapses (synaptic plasticity, or long-term potentiation) (King). What happens when a person forgets something, may actually not be the act of forgetting, but the inability to access the stored information. A neurobiologist Jeffrey Johnson explains this: “even though your brain still holds this information, you might to always have access to it” (Keim). Perhaps in the near future, scientists will be able to develop techniques for retrieving the “forgotten” memories, and more people will be able to not only develop cognitive abilities similar to Jill Price, but also learn how to control them.

Reference

1.GRAY, KETURAH and KATIE ESCHERICH. “‘It Makes Me Crazy’: Woman Can’t Forget”. ABC News. N.p., 2016. Web. 13 June 2016.
2. Keim, Brandon. “Forgotten Memories Are Still In Your Brain”. WIRED. N.p., 2016. Web. 12 June 2016.
3. King, Paul. “How Are Memories Stored And Retrieved”. Quora. N.p., 2016. Web. 12 June 2016.