ScienceDaily: Unlocking the power of our emotional memory

“"You may not realize it, but each time you recall a memory -- like your first time riding a bike or walking into your high school prom -- your brain changes the memory ever so slightly. It's almost like adding an Instagram filter, with details being filled in and information being updated or lost with each recall. "We're inadvertently applying filters to our past experiences," says Steve Ramirez (CAS'10), a Boston University neuroscientist. Even though a filtered memory is different from the original, you can tell what that basic picture is for the most part, he says.

"Memory is less of a video recording of the past, and more reconstructive," says Ramirez, a BU College of Arts & Sciences assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences. The malleable nature of memory is both a blessing and curse: it's bad if we remember false details, but it's good that our brains have the natural ability to mold and update memories to make them less potent, especially if it is something scary or traumatic.

So, what if it's possible to use the malleable nature of our memories to our advantage, as a way to cure mental health disorders like depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)? That is exactly what Ramirez and his research team are working to do. And after years of studying memory in mice, they've found not only where the brain stores positive and negative memories, but also how to turn the volume down on negative memories by artificially stimulating other, happier ones.

"Our million-dollar idea is, what if a solution for some of these mental disorders already exists in the brain? And what if memory is one way of getting there?" Ramirez says. In two new papers, he and his team demonstrate the power of our emotional memories and how our experiences -- and the way we process them -- leave actual physical footprints on the brain.``

Some Insights From This Article

• Now an outdated idea, the belief that memory was simply a recollection of events in the past was proven to be a little out from what actually happens. Memory is actually reconstructive in which our brain places filters and can slightly alter details each time the memory is accessed (specifically episodic memories).

• Researchers showed that each time we recall and reconstruct a memory from the past we add/diminish certain details from the original picture to make the memory fit more into our mindset and serve its intended purpose.

• While this could have negative implications in things such as false memory, there is therapeutic potential. Perhaps we can train our brain to alter a rather traumatic memory to a more positive, unharmful filter?

What do you make of the finding that memories are reconstructive not recollective?

Full article is here!

#Memories #Reconstruction #Emotions