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Amnesia
Published in Alexander R. Toftness, Incredible Consequences of Brain Injury, 2023
However, consolidation is not a simple one-way process. Whenever a memory is remembered, it changes a little, and must be reconsolidated. Each time that you remember a memory, you remember it a little bit differently at the level of the brain, including the synthesis of new proteins to help stabilize the memory. While the exact mechanisms of the reconsolidation process remain controversial, it is generally believed that during reconsolidation memories can be strengthened, weakened, or updated, and researchers can reduce memory reconsolidation through the use of chemicals called “inhibitors” (Roesler, 2017). In short, every time a memory is recalled, it is sensitive to being disrupted and overwritten with incorrect details, which can lead to people believing things that are not true (Chan & LaPaglia, 2013). Over time, your memories literally change, probably quite a bit more than you realize. In general, memories tend to change over time from rich episodic memories containing lots of detail (feelings, smells, colors, etc.) into simple semantic memories containing just the facts.
Why do we dream?
Published in Josie Malinowski, The Psychology of Dreaming, 2020
Some people wonder, but how can these dreams be functional if we don’t even remember most of them? And the answer is that we don’t have to always be consciously aware of this process for it to be beneficial. There are many adaptive processes that we are not consciously aware of all the time. Take language as an example. We learn the rules of language as children without even knowing we’re doing so. Or memory consolidation, as another. We strengthen our memories while we sleep without even trying to. So there’s no reason to suppose that the adaptive benefits of dreaming only happen if we recall the dream. We may be able to get even more from the dream process by recalling and then working more with dreams whilst awake, but if we want to argue that they are adaptive, then it shouldn’t be necessary to recall them for this.
Behavioural pharmacology
Published in Adam Doble, Ian L Martin, David Nutt, Calming the Brain: Benzodiazepines and related drugs from laboratory to clinic, 2020
Adam Doble, Ian L Martin, David Nutt
Another behavioural property of benzodiazepines that may be associated with sedation (or decreased arousal) is anterograde amnesia. This has been observed both in experimental animals (Thiébot, 1985) and in man (Lister, 1985; Curran, 1991). Little effect is seen on short-term memory or on recall of past events, suggesting that benzodiazepine full agonists have a deleterious effect on memory consolidation. This property of benzodiazepines, generally considered as detrimental, is made use of clinically when, for example, midazolam is used as an adjunct to general anaesthesia.
Targeted Memory Reactivation During Sleep, But Not Wake, Enhances Sensorimotor Skill Performance: A Pilot Study
Published in Journal of Motor Behavior, 2018
Brian P. Johnson, Steven M. Scharf, Kelly P. Westlake
Of the benefits of sleep, perhaps none has been more studied than learning and memory (for a review, see Diekelmann & Born, 2010). During sleep, spontaneous neural replay is thought to transfer memories from hippocampal-based short-term memory to cortically based long-term memory (Fischer, Nitschke, Melchert, Erdmann, & Born, 2005), enabling memories to become less prone to interference (Korman et al., 2007; Robertson, Press, & Pascaul-Leone, 2005). This process is known as memory consolidation. Compared with the wake state, sleep-based memory consolidation has been shown to result in greater stabilization (Hill, Tononi, & Ghilardi, 2009) and enhancement of sensorimotor performance (Al-Sharman & Siengsukon, 2013; Huber, Ghilardi, Massimini, & Tononi, 2004; Walker, Brakefield, Morgan, Hobson, & Stickgold, 2002). Moreover, evidence that memory consolidation is impaired following disruption or deprivation of sleep (Nemeth, Csabi, Janacsek, Varszegi, & Mari, 2012), emotional stress (Wang, Zhao, Ghitza, Li, & Lu, 2008), or learning a new task (Brashers-Krug, Shadmehr, & Bizzi, 1996), further supports the importance of sleep and lack of distractors during the memory consolidation phase of learning.
Manipulating Human Memory Through Reconsolidation: A Reply to Commentaries
Published in AJOB Neuroscience, 2018
In our article “Manipulating Human Memory Through Reconsolidation: Ethical Implications of a New Therapeutic Approach,” we argued that ethical discussion surrounding new developments in the psychological and biological sciences should be firmly grounded in empirical research. With this in mind, we outlined research regarding the disruption of memory reconsolidation through the combination of memory reactivation and propranolol administration. We then considered several commonly voiced objections to similar memory-modifying procedures, as well as discussing several new possible ethical implications. Drawing on existing research, we argued that many issues regarding the use of propranolol so as to interfere with memory consolidation and reconsolidation, such as the potential for producing declarative memory amnesia or accidently erasing the wrong memories, had been overstated: a conclusion that we stand by. Research bears out that propranolol's effects are circumscribed, have a principal effect on the affective dimension of a memory, and do not result in a general dampening of emotional responses or prevent new learning at a later time. Furthermore, such memory-modifying effects are increasingly being shown to occur only under specific conditions and may be very difficult to achieve (e.g., Sevenster, Beckers, and Kindt, 2013), a consideration which ought not nullify, but should at least temper, worries over the widespread usage of propranolol to neutralize the plethora of emotional burdens with which people deal on a daily basis.
When “They” Become “Us”: The Effect of Time and Ingroup Identity on Perceptions of Gay and Lesbian Group Members
Published in Journal of Homosexuality, 2019
Amber K. Lupo, Michael A. Zárate
Memory consolidation processes suggest that it takes time for attitudes to change. We propose that attitude change depends on time-dependent memory consolidation processes. Memory consolidation is the process by which information learned over time is integrated into our long-term memory and generalized to new, yet similar, events. This process primarily occurs during sleep (Racsmany, Conway, & Demeter, 2010; Gais, Lucas, & Born, 2006). A period of sleep after learning is shown to facilitate memory for declarative (e.g., vocabulary lists) and procedural information (e.g., motor memory; Diekelmann, Wilhelm, & Born, 2009) and performance on visual discrimination tasks (Stickgold, Whidbee, Schirmer, Patel, & Hobson, 2000).