New Treatments for Post-traumatic Stress
A new therapeutic approach is in sight for treatment of traumatic memories, including memories that cause PTSD. Two lines of memory research have converged to produce a treatment, and sometimes even a cure, for the most serious need to forget, PTSD. This may not be generally known or accepted, but at least two research groups have shown there is a blood pressure drug, propranolol, that helps us to forget overwhelmingly stressful memories and thus reduces the stress that goes with those memories. The latest treatment being investigated by some researchers is based on using a common blood pressure drug, propranolol, which has a side effect of blocking the re-consolidation of emotions associated with old memories when those memories are recalled.
One reason it is possible to forget or at least edit memories is that when even well-formed memories are recalled, they are put back on the scratch pad of working memory where they are accessible to “editing” and re-consolidation. As I explained in a previous blog column, each time a memory is retrieved, it can get changed and re-stored in a different way.
While memories reside on the scratch pad of working memory, either for the first time or during any recall episode, they can be changed by drugs. Also relevant here is that memory consolidation is greatly influenced by the impact of the experience, which is magnified by strong emotion and the hormones such emotions release. During re-consolidation, under conditions of proper talk therapy, the emotional impact need not duplicate the original and a more benign version will be stored in memory.
Tags: Guillaume Vaiva, PTSD, Roger Pitman