Childhood Amnesia refers to the inability of adults to remember events from their infancy and early childhood. Typically, most people can't accurately remember anything form their very early life - i.e. before 2yrs, and in some individuals up to 6yrs.

In general, the number of accurately recalled memories tends to increase gradually as a function of age (within limits).

Proposed explanations for this universal phenomenon go back as far as the times of the Ancient Greek philosophers.

Theories include the ideas, for example, that :

[1] The brain has not yet developed an efficient memory system in early years

[2] The very early memories are stored, but access is lost later in life

[3] The brain has some kind of age-selective 'forgetting' mechanism

None of the explanations have currently been accepted as a full science-based explanation.

Research efforts are hampered by the difficulties associated with memories in general - which are notoriously unreliable. For example, people may be convinced that they can accurately recall a very early memory, when in reality they are recalling a photo they were shown later in their childhood.

Further reading : Memory for the Events of Early Childhood Current Directions in Psychological Science. 8 (2): 46–48 ^{[ archived ]}

Note: Sigmund Freud famously presented several claims about Childhood Amnesia, but without any scientific evidence of any kind to back them up.

Also see : Memoryplugin-autotooltip__plain plugin-autotooltip_bigMemory

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"Although it is commonly accepted that learning and memory occur via enduring changes in neuronal properties such as synaptic strength within a network of neurons, many details of these processes remain unknown, including the mechanisms responsible for the persistence and maintenance of memory over long periods of time. and Forgettingplugin-autotooltip__plain plugin-autotooltip_bigForgetting

"Although it is commonly accepted that learning and memory occur via enduring changes in neuronal properties such as synaptic strength within a network of neurons, many details of these processes remain unknown, including the mechanisms responsible for the persistence and maintenance of memory over long periods of time."