Inducing amnesia through systemic suppression
View / Open Files
Journal Title
Nature Communications
ISSN
2041-1723
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
Volume
7
Number
11003
Language
English
Type
Article
This Version
VoR
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Hulbert, J., Henson, R., & Anderson, M. (2016). Inducing amnesia through systemic suppression. Nature Communications, 7 (11003)https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms11003
Abstract
Hippocampal damage profoundly disrupts the ability to store new memories of life events. Amnesic windows might also occur in healthy people due to disturbed hippocampal function arising during mental processes that systemically reduce hippocampal activity. Intentionally suppressing memory retrieval (retrieval stopping) reduces hippocampal activity via control mechanisms mediated by the lateral prefrontal cortex. Here we show that when people suppress retrieval given a reminder of an unwanted memory, they are considerably more likely to forget unrelated experiences from periods surrounding suppression. This amnesic shadow follows a dose-response function, becomes more pronounced after practice suppressing retrieval, exhibits characteristics indicating disturbed hippocampal function, and is predicted by reduced hippocampal activity. These findings indicate that stopping retrieval engages a suppression mechanism that broadly compromises hippocampal processes and that hippocampal stabilization processes can be interrupted strategically. Cognitively triggered amnesia constitutes an unrecognized forgetting process that may account for otherwise unexplained memory lapses following trauma.
Keywords
adolescent, adult, amnesia, brain, female, functional neuroimaging, hippocampus, humans, magnetic resonance imaging, male, memory, mental recall, prefrontal cortex, repression, psychology, young adult
Sponsorship
This work was supported by a Tom Slick Research Award in Consciousness from the Mind Science Foundation to J.C.H. and M.C.A. and grants from the Medical Research Council (MC-A060-5PR00, MC-US A060-5PR10), as well as from the National Science Foundation (0643321 and a Graduate Research Fellowship to J.C.H. (DGE-0751281)).
Funder references
MRC (unknown)
Medical Research Council (MC_U105579226)
Identifiers
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms11003
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/267267
Rights
Attribution 4.0 International, Attribution 4.0 International, Attribution 4.0 International, Attribution 4.0 International, Attribution 4.0 International, Attribution 4.0 International