CHICAGO, (Reuters) – U.S. researchers have found a drug-free way to block fearful memories, opening up the possibility of new treatment approaches for problems such as post traumatic stress disorder, they reported yesterday.
The findings in people build on studies in rats that showed that reactivating a memory — by showing people objects that stimulate the fearful memory — opens up a specific time window in which the memory can be edited before it is stored again.
“Before memories are stored, there is a period where they are susceptible to being disrupted,” said Elizabeth Phelps of New York University, whose study appears in the journal Nature.
Earlier studies have shown that drugs can be used to block fearful memories, but the results were not long lasting.
Phelps and colleagues based their studies on findings in rats that showed that old memories can be changed or reconsolidated, but only during a specific window time after the rat is reminded of the fearful memory.
That window of susceptibility is typically between 10 minutes after re-exposure to the object to 6 hours later, when the memory stored once again in the brain.
