They’re minor, everyday memory lapses but can be maddening. Where did you put the car keys? What was it that you wanted to say? Is there something wrong with your memory? The neural mechanisms of memory aren’t designed to remember things like the name of someone we met at a party, according to Charan Ranganath, a professor of neuroscience and psychology and director of the memory and plasticity programme at the University of California, Davis. So it’s normal to forget them. “Memory is the process by which our brains extract what’s important – that is, information that helps us make sense of an…