Welcome to middle age. Like countless millions, you have got MCI - mild cognitive impairment, a mental wooziness that begins at about 40 and that is likely to blight the rest of your life. You can look forward to many occasions where you will enter rooms on already forgotten errands, or spend hours trying to find your parked car.
Science, however, may soon come to the rescue. At biotechnology company laboratories across the United States, researchers are trying to develop the first drugs to deal with forgetfulness. The primary aim is to develop treatments for serious conditions such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases, but scientists also hope to counter the less debilitating but more common symptoms of normal middle age.
One such company is Memory Pharmaceuticals, which was set up by the Nobel laureate Eric Kandel and which is based in Montvale, New Jersey. They have used analysis of cell cultures, slices of brain and animal models to establish an understanding of human memory.
'We are searching the molecular pathways of memory for single proteins that can be used pharmacologically to repair impairments at the level of the synapse,' the company's president, Axel Unterbeck, says.
The approach seems to have succeeded. Unterbeck recently announced that he expects Memory Pharmaceuticals to launch trials of a pill to enhance the memory within the next year.
Similarly, the biotechnology company Cortex Pharmaceuticals in Irvine, California, has announced that in the next few weeks it will begin trials on patients with mild cognitive impairment using a drug called CX516, which is already being tested on patients with Alzheimer's disease and schizophrenia.
CX516 enhances the functioning of brain cell receptors that are linked to a chemical messenger called glutamate. In the ageing brain, the production of glutamate is disrupted and reduced. As a result, internal brain communication breaks down. Scientists believe CX516 will offset such symptoms by making cells more sensitive to glutamate, thereby compensating for its reduced output.
In addition, another California company, David Pharmaceuticals, has announced that it is to launch trials of three different 'memory pills', two for MCI sufferers and one for stroke victims, within the next year. There are altogether about a dozen US biotechnology firms that have announced plans for developing such pills, all of which hope to have drugs ready for the marketplace within five years. The 'thinking person's Viagra' is no longer a distant dream.
But not every scientist is convinced that such drugs will be a panacea. Some psychologists worry that 'memory pills' could have adverse side effects. We forget things for good reasons, they point out. If we did not, our minds would clog up with useless data, transforming us into irritating anoraks with trivia-stuffed memories. It is also possible that pill takers could lose the ability to suppress painful memories.
'I think such problems are unlikely, but we will have to be sure about such side-effects,' said Professor Til Wykes, of the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College, London. 'We are going to have to be sure these drugs not only help people remember, but that it makes them happy to remember.'
On balance, the prospects give grounds for hope - which is just as well. Otherwise, increasing numbers of old folk - maintained by good nutrition and modern health care - will survive in good physical nick, but with brains that are atrophying.
It is a point stressed by Vince Simmon of Cortex Pharmaceuticals. As he told Fortune magazine recently: 'Before long, we will need fleets of vans that cruise around all day picking up elderly joggers and taking them home - they'll be in great shape but won't remember where they live.'