We often think of prodigious memory as an arcane skill — almost indistinguishable from magic to those of us who no longer remember more than a few key phone numbers. But the ability to recall an epic poem or the full sequence of a deck of cards may be less mysterious than it seems.
According to a study published March 8 in the journal Neuron, the brains of 17 of the world’s top 50 memory champions actually look fairly similar to the brains of people with no standout memory.
