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Friday, January 14, 2011

Rewiring Our Memories, Removing Fears, and Treating PTSD

The future of the treatment of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) may lie in a unique combination of psychological and pharmacological intervention.  In the past, these two have been used separately, or side by side, but not actually in an interactive way.

Memories, it turns out, are not as permanent as we once thought.  Once a memory is activated, the brain then turns around and reconsolidates it.  However, if this process is interfered with, then the reconsolidation process doesn't work quite right.  If there is an emotional memory (such as a car accident, or a battle), the fear can be stripped away from the objective memory by interfering with the reconsolidatoin of the fear memory.

In the original research on this issue, researchers made rats fearful of a situation.  Then they found a way to make the rat recall the situation.  But they also gave the rat a protein synthesis inhibitor (with the theory that memory formation involves protein formation in the brain).  The rats no longer attached fear to the situation as they did before.

This could ultimately be one of the biggest breatkthroughs in all of psychotherapy, finding a way to detach painful, overwhelming feelings from past memories.

Currently, the protein synthesis inhibitors are not available for clinical use.  Beta-blockers (heart medications) are being used instead, which may or may not prove satisfactory.

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