Though we learn so much during our first years of life, we can’t, as adults, remember specific events from that time. Researchers have long believed we don’t hold onto these experiences because the part of the brain responsible for saving memories — the hippocampus — is still developing well into adolescence and just can’t encode memories in our earliest years. But new Yale research finds evidence that’s not the case.

In a study, the researchers showed infants new images and later tested whether they remembered them. When an infant’s hippocampus was more active upon seeing an image the first time, they were more likely to appear to recognize that image later.

The findings, published in Science, indicate that memories can indeed be encoded in our brains in our first years of life. And the researchers are now looking into what happens to those memories over time.

A new study has created the first normative charts of brain functional development from birth to six years old, highlighting how brain network growth tracks with cognitive milestones.

A new study has revealed how two morphogens, WNT and Sonic Hedgehog, act as molecular “traffic cops,” directing early human brain development.

A massive brain study reveals that the roots of consciousness may lie in perception, not thought.

Take a look at this interesting article that describes how consciousness creates life by maintaining the coherent organization of life-forms and by opposing the disorganizing effects of thermal disorder and entropy: