• How exactly does a brain store information?
• How are our memories first formed?
• What makes us forget them, or create false


• or distorted memories?
• What happens in dementia or neurodegeneration, when our memories crumble?
• Looking to the future, how might we keep our memories intact, as our lifespans extend?
• What will be the impact of AI?

Written by a professional quizzer and neuroscientist Hold That Thought is a concise, accessible and entertaining guide to all aspects of our memory. Drawing on personal experience and historical case studies, Darragh Ennis touches on subjects as wide-ranging and fascinating as plant and animal memory, our memory’s relationship with taste, smell and sleep, and how we might strengthen our memories to competitive level.

Did you know?:

• Short term memory is only a few seconds.
• Memories exist as physical objects in your brain. Any long-term memory is stored in a trace of neurons in a particular pattern.
• Photographic memory doesn’t really exist.
• Goldfish memories are actually pretty good, they are unfairly maligned!