Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is marked by debilitating anxiety triggered by traumatic memories. The individual becomes paralayzed with fear arisen by recollection of the traumatic event or by neutral events that are associated to the original trauma; for example a scent or a place can conjure up the traumatic memory.
Thus, it is the memory that triggers the anxiety and that is what researchers at NYU University are looking to alter. When people experience and learn something, it is immediately placed in short-term memory (temporary storage of information that will be used right away before being deleted, such as a phone number) where subsequently it will either be forgotten or be stored in long-term memory for future recall. According to the researchers every time a memory is recalled, it requires a process called consolidation to put it back into long-term memory and it is that mechanism that is targetted for the treatment of PTSD. In fact, the traumatic memory that is being recalled is then replaced with a more neutral memory, a process called reconsolidation. Interestingly, reconsolidation has only a 10-minute window of opportunity after wich time the memory can never be modified.
This method has not yet been applied to patients suffering from PTSD, but the results are so far very promising.
Jazzie.
No comments:
Post a Comment