Suppressing unwanted memories
Freud redux? A study from 2004 in Science looked into how we suppress unwanted memories. In this study, Anderson and colleagues found a nice relationship between the amount of activation in the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus and the magnitude of ‘forgetting’. Neural systems underlying the suppression of unwanted memories. Anderson et al. in Science. 2004 […]
Freud redux? A study from 2004 in Science looked into how we suppress unwanted memories. In this study, Anderson and colleagues found a nice relationship between the amount of activation in the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus and the magnitude of ‘forgetting’.
Neural systems underlying the suppression of unwanted memories.
Anderson et al. in Science. 2004 Jan 9; 303(5655): 232-5
Over a century ago, Freud proposed that unwanted memories can be excluded from awareness, a process called repression. It is unknown, however, how repression occurs in the brain. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to identify the neural systems involved in keeping unwanted memories out of awareness. Controlling unwanted memories was associated with increased dorsolateral prefrontal activation, reduced hippocampal activation, and impaired retention of those memories. Both prefrontal cortical and right hippocampal activations predicted the magnitude of forgetting. These results confirm the existence of an active forgetting process and establish a neurobiological model for guiding inquiry into motivated forgetting.
Full article (PDF)
