How does your memory work?.

This programme looks at many aspects of memory from birth to old age, including how brain injuries and medical or psychological events affect memory. Beginning with how small children begin to develop an autobiographical memory, we then go on to meet John Forbes whose premature birth led to his hippocampi being damaged. He is now 30, can't remember anything from his childhood and negotiates the world by rote and written notes. Genevieve is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder following a sexual assault 9 years ago. She meets Alain Brunet who is attempting to 'tone down' the effect of her memory by using beta blocker medication and recollection-therapy. As we grow older our memory cells diminish but for people with Alzheimer's disease the loss of memory is devastating. We hear from John Stevenson who was diagnosed with Alzheimer's aged just 53; he and his wife describe how his memory loss is affecting his life and his sense of the future. Interspersed among these cases are accounts of the neurology of memory and attempts to explain some of the more baffling aspects of memory such as how we form 'mental pictures.'