Adolescent Substance Abuse Articles
Study: Stress may link ordinary and traumatic memories
By Staff Writer
The findings of a recent animal study conducted by a team of neuroscientists indicate that stress can enhance memories with no relation to trauma. These results may lead to a better understanding of conditions such as post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
In the study, researchers from the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center, Rockefeller University and the Czech Republic's Academy of Sciences, examined the impact stress had on laboratory rats.
Researchers placed the rats in a t-shaped maze so that they would learn to make distinctions between left and right. A day later, the same rats were either forced to swim in a bucket of water or placed in shallow water. When rats from the bucket were again placed in the maze, they showed a better memory for which way to turn than rats who were not required to swim.
Further experiments validated the researchers' theory that the stressful swim had enhanced the rats' memories of the maze. According to the researchers, the results of the study led them to hypothesize that in humans, stress may reactivate memories and link them to a traumatic memory. This in turn may facilitate the pathological effects associated with mood and anxiety disorders such as PTSD.
