Researchers at the Uppsala University have found that a new data set shows how newly learned emotional imprints can be wiped out of the human brain, including fear. The findings fit the requirements of an interdisciplinary field called memory research.
Monika Eckstein, a member of the research team of the University of Bonn, cultivated an experiment with a shot of hormones into the nasal passages of 62 men in the hopes of their fear disappearing. Her test proved successful.
Oxytocin is often called “the hormone of love” due to its important function in mother-child relations, social bonding, and intimacy. It also appears to have an antianxiety effect. Give oxytocin to people with certain anxiety disorders, and activity in the amygdala—the primary fear center in human and animal brains, also known as almond-shaped bits of brain tissue sitting deep under our temples—falls.
According to Thomas Ågren, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Psychology under the supervision of Professors Mats Fredrikson and Tomas Furmark, new emotional memories can actually be erased from memory.
The researchers pointed a study’s focus to the participants by showing a neutral scene and simultaneously receiving an electric shock. This way, the scene attained power to evoke fear in the subject, which resulted in the formation of a fear memory. To stimulate this fear response, the picture was then displayed without any accompanying fright.
For just one test group, reprogramming of the reconsolidation process was disrupted with the support of repeated presentations of the photo.
Once the danger posed by the picture itself was setup, volunteers were split into two experimental groups. The members of one group were shown in the photo, whereupon a long period of time was allowed to consolidate the connection between the photo and the emotion of fear.
‘These findings may be a breakthrough in research on memory and fear. Ultimately the new findings may lead to improved treatment methods for the millions of people in the world who suffer from anxiety issues like phobias, post-traumatic stress, and panic attacks,’ says Thomas Ågren.
Scientists have discovered several promising methods for combating anxiety, including therapies based on improved genetic understanding of the nervous system’s reaction to fear. The gene encoding for a compound called BDNF—involved in neuronal growth, survival, and neurotransmission—was discovered.
When we remember an experience, the image of that experience gets destabilized, then is stabilized again by the consolidation of the memory. What we actually have stored in our memories is a false simulation of what truly occurred. By disrupting the reconsolidation process that follows recollecting, we can alter the content of memory.
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Sources:
www.sciencedaily.com
newatlas.com
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