I don’t know if it’s plaque or just that the electrons in certain parts of your brain don’t fire like they used to. When I took elective courses in psychiatry, we learned that as people age, they retain their long-term memory, but their short-term memory doesn’t stay with them as it used to. I’ve been retired for 16+ years, and I have problems recalling the names of some of the people I worked with every day. I can see their faces, but I can’t put a name to them. And there’s also times my kids will say “remember when this happened?”, and I have to say “no”, because I don’t. It’s really weird how the mind works.
Almost like RAM computer memory. There is a large but finite number od write-read cycles, and once exceeded, the memory forgets.