Who do we become when we can't remember who we are? If we experience radical changes in our personality, are we still ‘ourselves’? Consultant neurologist Jules Montague addresses these questions and many more in her new book Lost and Found: Memory, Identity and Who We Become When We’re No Longer Ourselves. She joined Ryan Tubridy in studio to discuss some of her findings.
"It turns out the things I thought were important, like having your memories for example, or having exactly the same personality, is not always what counts. What counts are things like moral traits… It's really the moral traits of personality that count. So, if I was to change your compassion, your empathy, your honesty, people would say you're a different person. If I was to change other traits, not related to morals, like your creativity, your curiosity, sociability, that wouldn't necessarily change who you are as a person."
Jules' clinical sub-specialty is early-onset dementia, with some of her patients in their 20s or 30s. She chronicles a selection of these cases in her book and says that genetics tends to play a role in such situations.
When it comes to what we remember, Jules says not all memory is the same.
"We retrieve memories with different clarity, particularly emotional memories are the ones that we seem to kind of maintain. That doesn't mean emotional memories are more accurate or anything like that. It's just there's a bit of the brain called the amygdala that grabs them and that sort of applies this very important filter to them… Also, people with dementia tend to hang on to memories from a long time ago so they'll be brilliant at remembering school and Bunsen burners and all of that sort of stuff but they might not remember what they had for breakfast this morning."
Click here to listen to Jules’ interview on The Ryan Tubridy Show.