Infantile Amnesia

Infantile Amnesia refers to the difficulty or inability that adults have in remembering detailed or episodic memories (memories where time, place and events can be identified) from early childhood, generally prior to age 3 or 4. If we think back, most of us have a few "snapshot" memories from childhood where we can remember a single scene or event, but can't normally place these single memories into a specific context.

This inability to remember events as a series is a result of the young child's undeveloped Limbic System (amygdala and hippocampus) where memories are chemically stored. Interestingly some children can remember events from earlier in childhood but lose access to those memories as they grow to adulthood.