Researchers believe Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) can be treated by memory modification, otherwise called memory reconsolidation.

PTSD can be acquired when a person is exposed to traumatic events like sexual assault, serious injury and warfare that results in intense feelings of fear, horror and powerlessness.

Like Us on Facebook

People who experience PTSD have recurring flashbacks, hyperarousal and avoidance of memories relating to the traumatic event that continues for more than a month after the event.

Memory reconsolidation is among the most exciting phenomena in cognitive neuroscience, said Lars Schwabe of Ruhr-University Bochum in Germany.

Using memory reconsolidation, psychiatrists believe unwanted memories can be modified and retrieved. It can allow psychiatrists to change unwanted memories, Schwabe said.

Reconsolidation appears to be a fundamental process to underlying cognitive and behavioral therapies, according to John Krystal, editor of the journal Biological Psychiatry.

Krystal believes identifying the roles and mechanisms in memory reconsolidation is an important step to fully harnessing this process in psychotherapy.

The first evidence of memory reconsolidation in humans was first reported in 2003.

Researchers believe memory reconsolidation can open doors for treatments of mental disorders like PTSD and drug addiction. They said that after memories are formed and stored, the memory is open to revisions and reconsolidation.

Other researchers believe memory reconsolidation is a distinctive process that can maintain and modify memories.

They argue the retrieval of a previously consolidated memory has been hypothesized to induce an additional activity-dependent labile period during which the memory can be modified.

Memory Reconsolidation came from memory consolidation, a process of stabilizing a memory after its initial acquisition.

There are two specific process of memory consolidation: synaptic consolidation and systems consolidation.

Synaptic consolidation occurs within the first few hours of learning something. System consolidation occurs over a period of weeks to a year.