Who has the most perfect memory?

Actress Marilu Henner has a highly superior autobiographical memory, a rare condition identified in only 100 people worldwide. This trait drives her to advocate for more funding for brain research. Give Marilu Henner a random date in the past and she can recall it with amazing clarity. Take Ap.

brainandlife.org - Marilu Henner's Exceptional Memory Spurs Interest in Brain Health

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Give Marilu Henner a random date in the past and she can recall it with amazing clarity. Take April 30, 1980. "It was a Wednesday," she says without hesitation. "I was in Cancun, Mexico, with my boyfriend at the time, who was soon to be my first husband." Marilu Henner knew she had an extraordinary memory by the time she was 5. She remembers wearing a cream-colored jumpsuit with harem pants and a stretchy strapless top with a turquoise jacket. "I drank tequila for the first time, and then never again for 25 years!" she says with a laugh. "The weather was beautiful that night, but it poured rain the next day, and all the plumbing in our resort went out. The whole thing comes back. It's like remembering your address or phone number or the color of your eyes. It's just there." For most people, such vivid memories are usually associated with major life events-your wedding day or the day your child was born-or traumatic moments like where you were when you heard about the attacks on the World Trade Center. Memories of our lives are typically like impressionist paintings, forming an overall picture from a distance but blurry when we try to zoom in and look at specifics. LISTEN NOW: Marilu Henner shares how her ability to recall every memory throughout her life has taught her valuable lessons and has propelled her to advocate for brain research on the Brain & Life podcast. But that's not the case for Henner, who may be best known for playing Elaine Nardo on the 1978-83 sitcom Taxi and has appeared in numerous TV series since—most recently as Paula, the politically incorrect mother of Dave (Max Greenfield), on CBS' The Neighborhood. Henner can recall past events in almost photographic detail thanks to a highly superior autobiographical memory (HSAM), a rare condition that has been identified in only about 100 people in the world. The condition, which allows people to recall the events of most of the days of their lives with remarkable detail and accuracy, was first described in 2006 by James McGaugh, PhD, founding chair of the department of neurobiology and behavior and founding director of the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory at the University of California-Irvine.

Marilu Henner (center) with the cast of Taxi in 1982. Taxi: NBC/PHotofest

Memory Superpower

"Even when I was 5 years old, people would say to my parents, 'What's with that kid and her memory? She remembers the last time I was here and everything that happened,'" Henner says. "They'd call me Little Miss Memory, the Memory Kid, or UNIVAC. You know, the old-fashioned computer. "If someone [in my family] wanted to know when something happened, it was always, 'Ask Marilu.' Everybody in my family is extremely smart and everybody has great memories, but I knew something was very unusual about mine. When you're one of six kids, you're always looking for something that makes you different from your brothers and sisters." Henner is still close with her five siblings, photographed here enjoying a meal together. Courtesy Marilu Henner (3)

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A Rare Condition

The first person to be identified with HSAM was Jill Price, who found Dr. McGaugh's name on the internet and emailed him in June 2000, describing her ability. "Whenever I see a date flash on the television (or anywhere else for that matter), I automatically go back to that day and remember where I was, what I was doing, what day it fell on, and on and on and on and on," she wrote in the email. After six years of working with Price, Dr. McGaugh and his colleagues published "A Case of Unusual Autobiographical Remembering" in the neuropsychology journal Neurocase in February 2006. Shortly afterward, Henner explains, a producer at 60 Minutes heard about Dr. McGaugh's research and proposed a story on the subject to Lesley Stahl, a correspondent on the show. Stahl wasn't impressed. She told the producer she didn't think the condition was that uncommon, since her friend Marilu Henner had the same type of memory. To prove it, Stahl took Henner and the producer out to lunch. "This was on Wednesday, September 20, 2006. Lesley started asking me all these questions to prove that I had it," Henner says. "And then the producer said something about her wedding on June 15, 1998, and I said, 'Why'd you get married on a Monday? That's so unusual,' and she said, 'Oh my God, you do have it!'" Three years later, Henner says, Stahl called with the news that the condition is very rare. Dr. McGaugh's group had mounted a search for more people like Henner and Price, and at that time had only found about a dozen. Along with four other HSAM "memory wizards," Henner taped a segment of 60 Minutes for which she underwent an MRI scan of her brain, answered a lot of questions, and shared stories of memory feats that, to her, were just the way she remembered things. "I was vibrating all day. I just loved it," Henner says. "I answered more than 500 questions. They gave us all the regular memory tests they give people for Alzheimer's, like number sequencing and repetition and looking at a box of images or objects. And then they got into the whole autobiographical part. I didn't want it to end."

brainandlife.org - Marilu Henner's Exceptional Memory Spurs Interest in Brain Health

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