Brain Study Suggests Traumatic Memories Are Processed as Present Experience

Ideally, such remedies may help rework the traumatic reminiscence into one which extra carefully resembles abnormal unhappy reminiscences. “It’s like having a block in the right place,” he stated. “If I can access a memory, I know it’s a memory. I know it’s not happening to me now.”

Dr. Ruth Lanius, the director of PTSD analysis on the University of Western Ontario who was not concerned within the examine, described its findings as “seminal,” each as a result of it establishes that traumatic reminiscences have distinct pathways and since it signifies that key mechanisms for traumatic reminiscence could contain less-examined areas of the mind. Much analysis into PTSD has targeted on the amygdala, the stress detection middle of the mind, and the hippocampus, she stated. The posterior cingulate cortex is “really involved in the reliving of memories,” and in in search of self-relevance, which can clarify why a sensory reminder could trigger overwhelming concern or panic.

“A soldier, if they hear fireworks, they may run and take cover,” Dr. Lanius stated. “Traumatic memories are not remembered, they are relived and re-experienced.”

Clinicians, she stated, can use these findings to deal with sufferers who “don’t feel that the trauma is over,” using therapies that “bring on line context, so you know, ‘Oh, that happened in the past.’” She stated researchers ought to discover therapies, like mindfulness, that are identified to activate the components of the mind identified to offer context.

If organic markers for PTSD can finally be recognized, it could be “a major scientific contribution,” settling variations inside the area about what experiences represent a trauma, stated Brian Marx, deputy director of the Behavioral Science Division of the National Center for PTSD, who was not concerned within the examine.