In 1968, a study demonstrated that consolidated memories can be affected again if they are reactivated. Given the importance of the stress hormones glucocorticoids (GCs) on memory consolidation, the goal of the current study was to assess whether GCs had the capacity to affect a reactivated long-term memory and whether neutral and emotional memories were affected differently. At the first session, participants encoded a movie containing neutral and emotional scenes. Two days later, they recalled the story. Half of them were then exposed to a psychosocial stressor. Memory performance was assessed again right after the stressor and five days later. The stressed group recalled less neutral material five days after the stressor compared to controls. Immediately after the stressor, the stressed group recalled more emotional material than controls. Moreover, this enhanced memory trace was maintained across time. This highlights the importance of minimizing exposure to stressful contexts when reactivating emotional memories.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.116034 |
| Date | January 2009 |
| Creators | Marin, Marie-France. |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Science (Division of Neuroscience.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 003134084, proquestno: AAIMR66971, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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