Reconsolidation Research – Neutralizing Painful Memories

Imagine that your memories are like a dynamic process of painting on a canvas that can change over time.

Studies at McGill University that has discovered a series of molecules that regulate how our brains recall, restore and change old memories.

They discovered that when you revisit a memory, it’s like painting on this mental canvas.

And as you engage in this process of remembering, the emotions tied to the memory can actually transform and they can be neutralized so that you just have the memories without the painful emotional element to them.

This is called reconsolidation of memories They conditioned rats to be afraid of a noise by pairing it with a mild electric shock.

Not very nice, but over time, the rats associated the sound with fear, creating a fear memory.

When they heard that noise later when it wasn’t paired with the electric shock, they still felt the fear because of their memory of the noise had been stored with the emotional component.

Later in the study, the researches played that same noise to reactivate the fear memory in the rats, but they did something different. They gave them beta-blockers as they were remembering the noise to disrupt the memory so it became instable.

When the rats were exposed to that noise again, their fear response decreased because this molecule had changed their memory of being afraid of that noise.

This research showed that by interfering with that memory, recall, and reconsolidatoin, they could modify and decrease the negative emotional impact of the memory.

Recalling painful memories can open a window for changes to occur and that reconsolidation can neutralize the emotional element of painful memories.

You’ll still have the memory, but you won’t experience the difficult emotions that was stored with the memory.

The emotions will be neutralized.

You will still have the memories, the lessons that you learned but you will be free from the pain.

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