Individuals with<unk>  can extensively recall the events of their lives, as well as public events that hold some personal significance to them. Those affected describe their memories as uncontrollable associations; when they encounter a date, they "see" a vivid depiction of that day in their heads without hesitation or conscious effort. While memories are reported as vivid, they are not exact recordings of all experiences, as seen in the case of Jill Price, then anonymised as "AJ": Although she describes her mind like having a movie running, she is not recording her world verbatim in its totality. One day after several hours together, she was asked to close her eyes and tell what her two interviewers were wearing. She was unable to do so. There is a distinction between those with<unk>  and those with other forms of exceptional memory, who generally use mnemonic or similar rehearsal strategies to memorize long strings of information. Memories recalled by hyperthymestic individuals tend to be personal, autobiographical accounts of both significant and mundane events in their lives. This extensive and highly unusual memory does not derive from the use of mnemonic strategies; it is encoded involuntarily and retrieved automatically. Despite perhaps being able to remember the day of the week on which a particular date fell, hyperthymestics are not calendrical calculators, like some people with savant syndrome. Rather, hyperthymestic recall tends to be constrained to a person's lifetime and is believed to be a subconscious process. Although people showing a high level of<unk>  are not regarded as autistic, certain similarities exist between the two conditions. Like autistic savants, some individuals with<unk>  may also have an unusual and obsessive interest in dates. As the first documented hyperthymestic, Jill Price was quite different from the famous case of mnemonist Solomon Shereshevsky (as documented by psychologist Alexander Luria). Shereshevsky could memorize virtually unlimited amounts of information deliberately, while Price could not – she could only remember autobiographical information (and events she had personally seen on the news or read about). In fact, she was not very good at memorizing anything at all, according to the study published in Neurocase. Hyperthymestic individuals appear to have poorer than average memory for arbitrary information. Another striking parallel drawn between the two cases was that Shereshevsky exemplified an interesting case of synesthesia and it has been suggested that superior autobiographical memory is intimately tied to time-space synesthesia. Difficulties Hyperthymestic abilities can have a detrimental effect. The constant, irrepressible stream of memories has caused significant disruption to Price's life. She described her recollection as "non-stop, uncontrollable and totally exhausting" and as "a burden". Price is prone to getting lost in remembering. This can make it difficult to attend to the present or future, as she is permanently living in the past. Others who have<unk>  do not display any of these traits, however. Price displays considerable difficulty in memorizing allocentric information. According to James McGaugh, "Her autobiographical memory, while incredible, is also selective and even ordinary in some respects". This was demonstrated by her having poor performance on standardised memory tests and average performance at school, unable to apply her exceptional memory to her studies. Deficits in executive functioning and anomalous lateralisation were also identified in Price. These cognitive deficiencies are characteristic of frontostriatal disorders. Even those with a high level of<unk>  do not remember exactly everything in their lives or have "perfect memory". Studies have shown that it is a selective ability, as shown by Price's case, and they can have comparative difficulty with rote memorization and therefore cannot apply their ability to school and work. Their memorization of events tends to exceed their ability to memorize given facts; for example, if you told a<unk> c a fact about the world, they may not remember what you said, but they will be more likely to remember what you wore and other details of the situation when you told them.
Hyperthymesia
Cardiovascular drift
Vasospasm
Tachycardia
Cardiomegaly
Adynamia
Bradycardia
Cyclospasm