Neuroscientists locate neurons that rewrite traumatic memories
Neuroscientists have located the cells that help reprogram long-lasting memories of traumatic experiences towards safety, a first in neuroscience.
“Our findings shed, for the first time, light onto the processes that underlie the successful treatment of traumatic memories,”
says EPFL Professor Johannes Gräff, whose lab carried out the study.
Part of the debate has to do with the fact that we still don’t understand exactly how neurons store memories in general.
Although they don’t exclude suppression, the findings from this study show for the first time the importance of rewriting in treating traumatic memories.
Using a fear-training exercise that produces long-lasting traumatic memories, the scientists first identified the subpopulation of neurons in the dentate gyrus that are involved in storing long-term traumatic memories.
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Surprisingly, when the researchers looked again into the brain of the mice, some of the neurons active at recalling the traumatic memories were still active when the animals no longer showed fear. Importantly, the less the mice were scared, the more cells became reactivated.
This was a first hint that the same population of neurons may be involved in storing and attenuating traumatic memories.
But when they reduced the excitability of other neurons in the dentate gyrus, there was no such effect, showing that the recall neurons in the dentate gyrus are crucial for fear attenuation.