Aging brains blend memories together instead of just forgetting them

This comes as absolutely no surprise to me -- my mother was recently transferred into memory care, and the changes to her memories are definitely showing some interesting changes. The foremost was that her new "apartment" is shared with one other person, gives off a bit of a dorm room vibe. First day, she was talking about how excited she was to be going back to school and seeing her boyfriends again(?!). I said, "Oh, like Doug? [my dad]". Her response? "Ew. No."

But, she's come around on that, and recently been upset about the affair he's been having (they divorced in 1980), and is irate over him having another kid with his new wife (1983), but isn't surprised that I haven't spoken to him in 12 years. She's never surprised at how I've aged, but doesn't remember her grandkids even exist and insists on meeting them soon (but remembers them when she sees them). Two weeks ago, she called to yell at me for things I did in high school (1990). At this point, I seem to be the anchor for everything recent, but when I'm not around physically, it's scattered everywhere else.

Re: Aging brains blend memories together instead of just forgetting them

#10

Post by voidhorse » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 2:08 PM UTC

xnx wrote: post #8

It's interesting to compare and contrast LLMs and biological brains. Both use a form of "compaction".

That's largely because we intentionally model llm "brains" after the human brain.