Hyperthymesia

Only 20 people in the world have been diagnosed with hyperthymesia, and it is believed Aurelien is the only Briton.

The 20-year-old is one of only a handful of people in the world with hyperthymesia, or highly superior autobiographical memory

He said: ‘It’s not something that I realised overnight, but when I was 14 I discovered that I was quite good at remembering some things that had happened years before.’

Now, when asked about the random date of October 1, 2006, for example, Aurelien remembers it was a cloudy Sunday, he listened to the song When You Were Young by The Killers, and he had asked out a girl but been turned down.  

His skill is not shared by his father Martyn, an architect, his French mother Dany, or his sister.

The average person retrieves information such as dates from their long-term memory in the right frontal lobe of the brain.

Aurelien does the same, but his long-term memory capacity is increased because he also uses the left frontal lobe, which normally deals with language, and occipital areas at the back of the brain, normally used for storing pictures.

There is a video on Aurelien on Channel 4, below is the following link  : 

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-boy-who-cant-forget/on-demand