Suppressing bad memories from the past can block memory formation in the here and now, research suggests.
The study could help to explain why those suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other psychological conditions often experience difficulty in remembering recent events, scientists say.
Writing in Nature Communications, the authors describe how trying to forget past incidents by suppressing our recollections can create a “virtual lesion” in the brain that casts an “amnesiac shadow” over the formation of new memories. “If you are motivated to try to prevent yourself from reliving a flashback of that initial trauma, anything that you experience around the period of time of suppression tends to get sucked up into this black …show more content…
That, says the researchers, offers new insights into the ways in which we block distressing recollections. “By learning more about the mechanisms that allow us to remember when we want to remember or forget when we want to forget, we can identify memory control strategies that help maximise the benefits and minimise the side effects,” said Hulbert.
Brewin believes the study supports current approaches to tackling PTSD, which advises against suppressing recollections. “We know that is harmful in other ways, not just to their memories, because it prevents them from really coming to terms with the event, and desensitising themselves to the horrific experiences they’ve had” he says. “So all the things that therapists already are doing are the right things according to this theory as well.”
“We now have quite convincing evidence, from two independent laboratories, that you can, just by performing a cognitive task, produce a temporary virtual lesion in the hippocampus, during which time healthy, young undergraduate students show characteristics typically observed in amnesic patients,” added neuroscientist Dr Sinead Mullally from Newcastle University, whose previous research focused on a similar idea. “And that has real knock-on consequences as a tool to understand memory
The study could help to explain why those suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other psychological conditions often experience difficulty in remembering recent events, scientists say.
Writing in Nature Communications, the authors describe how trying to forget past incidents by suppressing our recollections can create a “virtual lesion” in the brain that casts an “amnesiac shadow” over the formation of new memories. “If you are motivated to try to prevent yourself from reliving a flashback of that initial trauma, anything that you experience around the period of time of suppression tends to get sucked up into this black …show more content…
That, says the researchers, offers new insights into the ways in which we block distressing recollections. “By learning more about the mechanisms that allow us to remember when we want to remember or forget when we want to forget, we can identify memory control strategies that help maximise the benefits and minimise the side effects,” said Hulbert.
Brewin believes the study supports current approaches to tackling PTSD, which advises against suppressing recollections. “We know that is harmful in other ways, not just to their memories, because it prevents them from really coming to terms with the event, and desensitising themselves to the horrific experiences they’ve had” he says. “So all the things that therapists already are doing are the right things according to this theory as well.”
“We now have quite convincing evidence, from two independent laboratories, that you can, just by performing a cognitive task, produce a temporary virtual lesion in the hippocampus, during which time healthy, young undergraduate students show characteristics typically observed in amnesic patients,” added neuroscientist Dr Sinead Mullally from Newcastle University, whose previous research focused on a similar idea. “And that has real knock-on consequences as a tool to understand memory