MEET A CANADIAN TEEN GIFTED WITH A SUPER-POWERED MEMORY | W5 INVESTIGATION

welcome back imagine being able to remember every minute of every day of your life relive your first date a birthday party from 20 years ago or the death of a loved one all as if it were yesterday well, there is a small portion of the population that has that type of

super

memory

is a rare medical phenomenon that science is just beginning to understand and Avis favro reveals why it may be the key to a cure for dementia us minus X or more X Emily Nash, 18, is in her last year of high school just west of Ottawa, she's like any ordinary

teen

ager, except for this date, these Canadian musicians are in order by their year of birth, starting with the oldest, how many people can remember the age of these celebrities and put them in order in a fraction of a second?

Michael Bou Drake Seline Dion and Shawn Mendes Seline Dion Michael wé Drake Shawn Mendes yes my god this is not a party trick. You're watching someone with a far

super

ior autobiographical

memory

or H Sam starring Jack Black. Which 2008 DreamWorks film was the best animated film? Kung Fu Panda, yes, Emily. He is believed to be the first Canadian with this scientifically confirmed phenomenon that remembers events like a computer with astonishing accuracy which song sung by Justin Timber Lake earned trolls a nomination can't stop the feeling yeah, jeez and all that information tied to the exact date it happened October 21, 2021, oh, the Alec Baldwin Rush shooting that was on a Thursday.

He would never point at anyone and pull the trigger. Never, how do you know that? Because I specifically remember that the day before that happened, I took off my braces, which was October 20th. 2021 what happened on September 8, 2022 the queen died that was on a Thursday as Britain adjusts to the loss of its longest-serving monarch, who is seen as the soul of the nation March 4, 2019 march oh uh Luke Perry died Luke Perry suffered a massive stroke at his home in La last Wednesday and died today surrounded by loved ones my mom took me home for lunch uh and I remember in the car we had the radio on and they said Luke Perry passed away.

Have you ever seen Beverly Hills 90210? You didn't even just read about what musicians did before she was born Freddy Mercury is stuck in your brain when Aid oh July performed live July 13, 1985 and you can remember all the dialogue from movies you've seen like Bohemian raps City there a line in the movie where a band member is clapping along to We Will Rock You and says: imagine thousands of people doing this. Do you know what Freddy answered him? What is the letter? That's all. What are the lyrics? I'm actually nervous interviewing you, really, yeah, because you. I will remember everything, just as this day will remain in your memory.

Oh yeah, this is definitely going to be in the books, so how does she do it right for each day? I remember them specifically as a calendar and each day is represented as a little movie. where I can rewind and fast forward and replay very interesting points throughout my day here's the name of the number one song with that name. Journey's Don't Stop Believing most kids can't beat their parents at trivia, but of course that's not the case when Emily takes on her father Jason Nash and her mother Julie Farnworth. Name That Tune. They knew there was something special in Emily's memory from a young age.

Emily and I used to play bowling with the plastic pins outside and these were different colored pins and I would show Emily the pins for about 10 seconds and then I would spin her around and ask her to tell me exactly what colors the pins were. pins, in the correct order, I would remove them immediately in terms of identifying each pin in terms of, you know, red yellow. green blue and they encouraged that skill by helping her have fun with it we used to play this game while waiting for the school bus in terms she really liked at the time peanuts episodes I would say okay let's start at this point in the episode, when you feel a little better, you can walk, it's a walking cast, she would start telling the episode from any point in the episode until the bus arrived, she knew all the dialogue, yes, line by line, from any point in the episode , Yeah.

When did you start to recognize that you had a different level of memory than other people, probably around age 10? Is it so scary? A little scary. I just thought it was a little strange at first, like it was a little abnormal and so on. That forced me to keep it to myself, yes, she was hiding a lot from us. How did you feel when you heard that? Well, I'm not surprised to know Emily's personality again because she's very reserved and you know a little shy that she did it. I don't want to share all that, but once we said well, can you name the day of the week?

You can come back? You know a year and tell us exactly what you did on that date. Do you know what you were wearing? What did you eat? able to explain all those things, but there was no way to hide it after one particular day, it just so happened to be Remembrance Day when Julie, who was mourning the loss of her mother, was choosing her parents' tombstone, the designer asked for very specific dates in their lives and It was just a time when my sister and I were struggling with dates to place the monument, we weren't sure, so I said just a minute, let me text Wikipedia, yeah , Wikipedia, that was Emily's nickname since she was young and within seconds she responded to me. all the information was then when the woman designing The Headstone connected the dots, she said you have to look up Mary Lenner, we didn't think much about it but that night I went home and started researching and it was a blast.

Dropping moment when I realized the similarities between Mary L Henner H Sam and Emily the pieces really fit together. Look, I'd really like to have one person there that I don't mind impressing. This is the most famous person with h Sam. Actress Mary Lou Henner, known for her role on the 1970s sitcom Taxi, also appeared in this 60 Minutes episode about H Sam. October 26, 1976. Well, October 26, 1976. 1976 was a Tuesday that helped spread the highly superior autobiographical memoir when Hanner appeared on the 2010 show, only six cases of H Sam were reported in the world. Now there are at least 100.

It was a Monday. A relief for Emily, who has felt different for most of her young life. I'm not the only one I found. I found out Mary Lou Henner had it because you didn't exactly have to feel different. It felt good to know that other people in the world have it. I was very relieved to know that I am not alone. Yes, are you going? go see the musical I want yes no I'm having a lot of fun so far meanwhile Emily has decided to talk to some close friends like Michaela Brart December 20, 2019 what day of the week was that?

It was Friday, it's weird, but weird in a good way. Oh thanks. I only told a couple of them about who I have specifically. They say, "Okay, that really makes sense for what you have, so you found out they accepted you." who you were, I'm very happy about that, but one of the challenges of remembering every day of your life is that you not only relive the good things but also the bad, that will be fun, oh yes, it will be memorable, yes, definitely. Julie is a psychiatric nurse and when she started researching Emily, she discovered that some people with this disorder develop OCD, depression or anxiety as they get stuck reliving painful memories over and over again.

Have you seen her go downhill? Yes, I have tried to teach him that. everyone has anguish uh everyone no one is going to escape it um that's part of life does it worry you at all? I won't lie sometimes it keeps me up at night thinking you know it's hard enough for any of us to go through that a break up or a grief um but what is it like for her? I don't think any of us can conceptualize what it will be like for her, her best family therapy may come from

meet

ing someone else from her unusual tribe of her, 29 years old.

Mar Pastak from Milwaukee also has hsam and has been very public about trying to connect and educate others about the fact that Emily is coming forward, what do you think of that? I think it's brave to take that step to admit that you have this. I am going to give you my memory as my most precious jewel, my most sacred thing to me and I am going to open myself to you and you can ask me any day of my life and I am going to tell you what I did that day in Mary. met three other people with h Sam Emily is the fourth, so it's my great pleasure to introduce everyone here Emily,

meet

Mary, Mary, meet Emily, what do you want to ask?

How does your memory work like mine? Like a calendar, not so much of a calendar for me. It's more like a game board, like a path and like every day is a different square and like they're different colors and it zigzags around, it's almost like you can walk down it and walk back and forth through your day. a day. -In everyday life, do you let people know that you have H Sam or do you wait until it comes up naturally in conversation with friends and acquaintances and stuff, or at work, even um, I just wait until it comes up , but it usually happens?

Forgive me if I sound weird about this, but does your brain ever stop thinking or just get flooded with memories like 247? My default was always just remembering Nostalgia, you know, and I think that's still my default to some extent, but not all the time. Um, because again I learned to compartmentalize or, as you know, I've just worked on my own mental health as well and my own personal boundaries. With that, I would say that the first thing you should do is learn to cultivate forgiveness for everyone. Other people hurt you at some point because we are all human and most people again have their forgetfulness to alleviate that and move on, we don't have that and that is why we have to rely a lot on the virtue of forgiveness and and recognize that people are human and they make mistakes.

Mary says she found even greater benefit in connecting with people who have H. Sam, based on the advice she received from a researcher, he said we should share his story, that's what will help. We do more research because it's those people, it's those nuggets where we can connect different similarities that people have with hsam or we just tell the whole, unfiltered story of our lives and what it's like to live with hsam, where researchers will be able to connect the dots. maybe we can get tickets for them too and that's exactly what Emily wants to do to help scientists connect the dots between higher memory and how it can offer clues to help those who lose their memory. to dementia, the surprising link between sleep and memory, do you feel like you're on the brink of something?

It's very exciting and makes me excited for the future when W5 continues this morning flight for Emily Nash and her parents Jason and Julie. is headed to Austin, Texas, when you think you want to try these on, you like the red ones or These are pretty, yeah, I'm not used to this, I know, pull them by the straps, okay, but this visit is more than just going shopping. Emily has been invited. for us scientists to be part of a study here at Texas State University, it is because of your rare ability to remember almost every minute of every day of your life, it is called highly superior autobiographical memory or hsam, let's start with the 10 date test, so Emily is one of the 12 ham people about to be tested with Carmen Westerberg, one of the lead researchers, how about October 28, 2022?

Let's see, it was a Friday. Emily is the youngest patient Westerberg has ever examined. He even had to design a new test for her because, when she was 18, her memories are those of a

teen

ager. I just want to say how about November 26, 2021, which was a Friday, and then you remember a verifiable event from that time, the Netflix movie Tick Tick. boom released November 10, 2021 House of Gucci released November 24, 201201 Westside Story released December 3, 2021, so one thing that stood out was that every time we asked her a question about pop culture, she I was aware and Emily fits one of those patterns. with HS they seem to become aware of their extraordinary memory around puberty and it takes approximately until the age of 12 for their memory system to fully develop, that's when they start to realize that they know they can actually remember a lot of things because they now have the machinery or the hardware that allows them to do that, nothing it does should hurt you okay so oh no I'm not worried about scientists analyzing Emily's brain while she sleeps because they know that sleep plays a big role in the memory storage, what is it like?

It's going pretty well, it feels a little weird, but yeah, you have your sign, so that's where they're going to place the electrodes. Yes, the first amateur radio patient was identified in 2006. Since then, researchers have been investigating why their brains never seem to be full of daily information and even mundane details, do you believe that sleep is a link, yes, what do you think? what is happening? They haveThere's been a lot of research done on how memories are consolidated during sleep, so this seems to fit well with ham because there have been some studies that show that they're not actually taking in more information, they're just not forgetting it like most people do. people, so we think they might be better at consolidating their memories during sleep.

Night, good night, honey, good night, good night, Emily. She says she always sleeps soundly, and she does exactly that at this Austin, Texas, sleep lab for two nights. So what are you looking for in relation to her and H Sim's memory? We are primarily looking for slow oscillations and sleep spindles. If we look here, these things here, is that a spindle, which is a spindle, spindles are little bursts of electrical signals that allow different parts of the brain to communicate and help store information, so if you think about what you had for dinner last night. You're going to have a memory of what the food was like, what it tasted like, who you were with, what time it was, so all of those different bits of information are represented in different parts of the brain and they have to connect together for this to happen. talking to each other?

Yes, the more spindles the more likely scientists are to think that memories appear to be safely stored and not forgotten, and they are seeing something fascinating. Emily, like others with HS, seems to have more spindles during the early phases of sleep. are you seeing a pattern in people with hm versus normal people, yes we are, which is exciting for us. Their early data suggests that those with ham have twice as many spindles compared to people with normal memory, that's where we see a big difference between the H Sams and the H Sams. That's significant now: can we say it's twice as many as one seems so?

Still, in those with early Alzheimer's, scientists notice that the spindles are weaker and less efficient. This raises the possibility that increasing spindles during sleep to levels like those seen in hsam could help restore memory in patients. with dementia, I think for people in the early stages it could help prolong the time that they can live independently and, you know, carry out their life activities and there are intriguing studies that show that common sleep medications in They actually increase the spindles and strengthen the memories. Do you feel like you're on the edge of something because people like Emily come and do these tests?

When we see that you know, when we put all the data together and see, oh yeah, the HSS has a different dream, it's very exciting and it makes me excited for the future. The family has a great interest in all this science. Two of his grandparents suffered from dementia. I just saw the effects it had on my mom and her sisters and it scares me a little knowing that, as people in my life, the future, when I'm an adult, will probably face the same thing. What about those awards there? Yes, I received this on March 24, 2022, which was a Thursday.

Meanwhile, the straight-A student heads to college this fall with increasing comfort. Technically, about his highly superior autobiographical memory superpower is that what I do like to refer to as a superpower, but I'm not one to brag, you can brag just fine on TV, yeah, sometimes I like to call a teenager with a gift a superpower. strange and now a new personal mission I want to dedicate myself to a career related to scientific research. I'm thinking biomedical sciences, biotechnology, what do you want to do with all the research I've done? There are many types of memory disorders and the like.

Health issues that many people have faced throughout their lives, all I know is that I want to help people the best way I can since Emily is still young. Scientists hope to follow her and other teenagers with super memories throughout her life, giving them unusual appearances. what happens to your memories as they age this is w5's last show when we return a look back at 58 years of w5 good night i'm ken kavanaugh and this is w 5 good night i'm doug johnson carol taylor on w5 tonight i'm Jack MC I'm LD Robertson good evening I'm Tom Gold the show is W5 he this is so spectacular Elvis Elvis no one has come out of Stratford Ontario and been famous or wait Lloyd Robertson has come out of statford Ontario and I've been so famous so far my producers They will allow me to go to get to the bottom of a story.

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