Eli5 How is it possible for people to forget things they studied for years?

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Like highschool or even university level studies where someone actually studies and understands their subjects then finds himself a few years later with ZERO memory of the things he studied? where does the information go? is it lost forever?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

When you learn a skill, it’s like muscle memory. If you learn how to throw a ball, you practice for years, you remember to throw a ball. If you don’t throw a ball for five years, it takes a couple minutes to get back to throwing the ball like you did after practicing for years, because even if it was muscle memory, the pathways created to do that task haven’t been used in so long that they have to either be reignited, or recreated.

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