A few weeks ago, I was reminiscing with friends about our schooldays. There was a lot of laughter – until someone mentioned a friend of ours who died in a car accident back then.
All of a sudden, the joy of sharing memories was gone. It was replaced instantly by a long silence as we remembered the loss of our friend and the sadness we experienced more than 25 years ago.
It had been years since I last thought about this friend. And the chances are, without seeing my friends that night, I might have gone years more without thinking about him.
But although I had forgotten many important details, such as the exact year it happened, I had not forgotten how I felt, who I was with and what I was doing when I found out about his death.
This is both sad and somewhat useful from a mental health point of view. The ability to forget about traumatic experiences – at least temporarily – is vital for people to move on with their lives and not get stuck in the past.
But things are never as easy as we think when it comes to memory.
Some people do not have the freedom to forget at all. I am not speaking about those who work hard to be memory wizards, such as Suresh Kumar Sharma from India, the world record-holder of the largest number of pi digits memorised and recited (70,030 at the last count).
I am referring to the few people who have highly superior autobiographical memory (HSAM), a phenomenon first reported in 2006 by scientists from the University of California Irvine Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory
Previously referred to as hyperthymesia, HSAM can be described as the ability of individuals to recall vividly and in great detail what happened in their lives on a given date.
There are about 100 people worldwide who have this extraordinary ability. But some see it as a curse because it prevents them from forgetting past traumas.
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Read more from Olivier Oullier:
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Earlier this year Jason Brandt and Arnold Bakker from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine published a study which used structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to explore the activity in the brain of a man exhibiting a clear case of HSAM.
His HSAM abilities were first identified from interviews about his life and his results at various advanced cognitive, personality and memory tests.
The scientists concluded his “ability to recall general factual information, historical facts and dates, sports statistics and popular culture, as well as personal life experiences, is exceptional, even though he performs in only the average range on tests of intellect and new learning ability”.
Thanks to neurotechnology, they identified neuroanatomical differences in his temporal lobe and hyper connectivity between his left hippocampus – a part of the brain playing a key role in memory – and other regions of the brain, compared with other people.
Simply put, it seems that a key component of his brain’s memory system communicates more with other parts of the brain compared to people who do not have HSAM.
There seem to be a growing interest in HSAM cases, as illustrated by Italian researchers who published a study last month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States, together with the scientist who first identified HSAM more than a decade ago.
This group also used functional MRI to compare the brain activity of eight HSAM individuals with 21 control test people, all of whom were required to retrieve autobiographical and non-autobiographical memories while their brains were scanned.
Unsurprisingly, HSAM individuals had better and faster recollection of past experiences which were autobiographical.
Similarly to what was found in the Johns Hopkins study, the connectivity between the hippocampus and other parts of the brain was enhanced.
Interestingly, the results also showed increased coupling with sensory cortices. The latter hints at HSAM individuals possibly relying more on their senses to recall autobiographical memories than control participants in the experiment.
Although not mentioned explicitly by researchers, some HSAM individuals reported reliving experiences in a sensory way as if they are still happening, rather than recalling events the way most people do.
As Japanese author Haruki Murakami wrote in his 2002 novel Kafka on the Shore, "memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart".
Clearly our ability to remember and to forget has a great impact on how we lead our lives.
Above all, memory is not just a way to remember the past but a system that allows us to design our future.
Professor Olivier Oullier is the president of Emotiv, a neuroscientist and a DJ
Dhadak
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Stars: 3
Who's who in Yemen conflict
Houthis: Iran-backed rebels who occupy Sanaa and run unrecognised government
Yemeni government: Exiled government in Aden led by eight-member Presidential Leadership Council
Southern Transitional Council: Faction in Yemeni government that seeks autonomy for the south
Habrish 'rebels': Tribal-backed forces feuding with STC over control of oil in government territory
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Engine: 1.5-litre four-cylinder (Cooper) / 2.0-litre four-cylinder (Cooper S)
Power: 136hp @ 4,500rpm (Cooper) / 192hp @ 5,000rpm (Cooper S)
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PREMIER LEAGUE FIXTURES
All kick-off times UAE ( 4 GMT)
Saturday
Liverpool v Manchester United - 3.30pm
Burnley v West Ham United - 6pm
Crystal Palace v Chelsea - 6pm
Manchester City v Stoke City - 6pm
Swansea City v Huddersfield Town - 6pm
Tottenham Hotspur v Bournemouth - 6pm
Watford v Arsenal - 8.30pm
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Brighton and Hove Albion v Everton - 4.30pm
Southampton v Newcastle United - 7pm
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Leicester City v West Bromwich Albion - 11pm
The White Lotus: Season three
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- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
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What vitamins do we know are beneficial for living in the UAE
Vitamin D: Highly relevant in the UAE due to limited sun exposure; supports bone health, immunity and mood.
Vitamin B12: Important for nerve health and energy production, especially for vegetarians, vegans and individuals with absorption issues.
Iron: Useful only when deficiency or anaemia is confirmed; helps reduce fatigue and support immunity.
Omega-3 (EPA/DHA): Supports heart health and reduces inflammation, especially for those who consume little fish.
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Know your cyber adversaries
Cryptojacking: Compromises a device or network to mine cryptocurrencies without an organisation's knowledge.
Distributed denial-of-service: Floods systems, servers or networks with information, effectively blocking them.
Man-in-the-middle attack: Intercepts two-way communication to obtain information, spy on participants or alter the outcome.
Malware: Installs itself in a network when a user clicks on a compromised link or email attachment.
Phishing: Aims to secure personal information, such as passwords and credit card numbers.
Ransomware: Encrypts user data, denying access and demands a payment to decrypt it.
Spyware: Collects information without the user's knowledge, which is then passed on to bad actors.
Trojans: Create a backdoor into systems, which becomes a point of entry for an attack.
Viruses: Infect applications in a system and replicate themselves as they go, just like their biological counterparts.
Worms: Send copies of themselves to other users or contacts. They don't attack the system, but they overload it.
Zero-day exploit: Exploits a vulnerability in software before a fix is found.
Another way to earn air miles
In addition to the Emirates and Etihad programmes, there is the Air Miles Middle East card, which offers members the ability to choose any airline, has no black-out dates and no restrictions on seat availability. Air Miles is linked up to HSBC credit cards and can also be earned through retail partners such as Spinneys, Sharaf DG and The Toy Store.
An Emirates Dubai-London round-trip ticket costs 180,000 miles on the Air Miles website. But customers earn these ‘miles’ at a much faster rate than airline miles. Adidas offers two air miles per Dh1 spent. Air Miles has partnerships with websites as well, so booking.com and agoda.com offer three miles per Dh1 spent.
“If you use your HSBC credit card when shopping at our partners, you are able to earn Air Miles twice which will mean you can get that flight reward faster and for less spend,” says Paul Lacey, the managing director for Europe, Middle East and India for Aimia, which owns and operates Air Miles Middle East.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Lexus LX700h specs
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