Researchers at Texas A&M University believe they have developed a method to safely trace traumatic memories and possibly disrupt them, thereby reducing their ability to elicit fear responses in PTSD patients.
Stephen Maren, Professor of Psychology and Brain Sciences, and his team investigated commonly used techniques to reactivate traumatic memories in patients’ minds and found that they provide an opportunity to change or erase these memories altogether.
For example, veterans experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may be asked to recall specific external stimuli, such as flashes of light or specific sounds, from the evocative memory as trauma cues during therapy.
The thinking behind this technique is to effect memory recall without inflicting additional suffering on the patient, with the aim of dampening their relived experiences through exposure.
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In exposure therapy, however, the underlying traumatic memory still exists and can still cause it at any time. In other words, it can treat the symptoms of a recent episode, but the necessary cause is not necessarily addressed.
Using a technique known as the ‘backward conditioning procedure’, the researchers think that it is possible to isolate a memory through indirect association. By linking the congenital memory to an indirect indication, which can then be used out of context, it is possible to reduce the overall fear response in the patient through more indirect exposure, while the original memory itself destabilizes through repeated decontextualization.
The research is still in its infancy, but could allow additional memory techniques and treatments to completely disrupt the original, damaging memory by using this newly created window.
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