An Exciting Use for State-Dependent Memory: Showing how state of mind directly affects how a memory is stored and retrieved!

Could recreating "state-of-mind" help recover and treat issues from repressed memories?

Many of us are aware that the human brain is capable of taking traumatic memories and hiding them from our conscious. However, almost just as many of us are not aware of how.

State-dependent memory or learning is a process that is believed to aid in the creation of memories that are inaccessible to consciousness. State-dependent memory, or state-dependent learning is the phenomenon through which memory retrieval is most efficient when an individual is in the same state of consciousness as they were when the memory was formed ( Russell Dewey, State-Dependent Memory, 2007)

This process takes place in the GABA System of the brain. State-dependent memory shows that state of mind can directly affect the way that memory is encoded. This illustrates that there are several pathways to memory retrieval.

All working together properly this system proves to balance out quite a bit of the brain’s activity being directly linked to the nervous system while, at the same time playing a role in memory. The system breaks down like this:

Glutamate, works with synaptic GABA. Both are highly present in the brain and play a major roll. Glutamate is an excitatory neurotransmitter, where, synaptic GABA is an inhibitory. If Glutamate only was present, we would be far to excitable. Synaptic GABA works to balance things out. A second GABA, extra synaptic GABA does this as well as contributes in encoding inaccessible memories.

“Findings show there are multiple pathways to storage of fear-inducing memories, and we identified an important one for fear-related memories,” said principal investigator Dr. Jelena Radulovic, the Dunbar Professor in Bipolar Disease at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

A study at Berkley in California demonstrated that the most efficient way to retrieve the memories in this system is to return the brain to the same state of consciousness as when the memory was encoded.

This Information provides great hope to Psychology. Especially in regards to patients with repressed memories that are adversely affecting their mental health.

More Articles on the Science of Memory!
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