Recent Studies in Functional Brain Imaging

An American study tends to prove that we can dispose of unwanted memories out of our consciousness, supporting the theory of the father of psychoanalysis on repression. However, the low number of people participating in the study will definitely not persuade the most sceptical about this issue.

There are some things you would like to completely forget. Well, new research just established that we would be able to have a selective memory. According to researchers Dr. C. Anderson and C. Green, their study provides clear evidence of the ability to remove certain memories from your mind.

The study

These researchers from the University of Oregon (United States) have recruited 32 students, whom they asked to memorize forty pairs of unrelated words. Thereafter, they had to show one of the words and asked them either to give the matching word or else forget it.

Results: More participants who were asked to forget some words (between 0 and 16 times), they were less able to remember later, even if they were offered money to do so although a maximum award of four dollars was not a good incentive to grow neurons.

Inhibition

In a commentary accompanying the publication of this study in the prestigious journal, Nature, psychologist Martin Cornway from the University of Bristol in England believes that this "inhibition" supports Freudian theory that the mind is able to suppress certain memories especially those that are unnecessary or painful.

Regarding the unnecessary memories, the phenomenon could occur in everyday life. Would it not be counter-productive to remember your last score in a game or the first time you encountered acne?

Turning to more serious implications, these results also seem to reinforce the work that children are less likely to remember after having been sexually abused by a relative than those from an outsider.

Of course, memorizing paired words is less traumatic from being sexually abused during childhood, thus there is no basis to extent the results of this study to the memory of traumatic episodes.

Starting point

Nevertheless, the scientists believe that this study is a good starting point for the demonstration of the Freudian theory of repression. The next stages of the experiment are aimed to determine whether this phenomenon may be associated with a richer emotional event which in turn, thanks to the new methods of functional imaging, it will be possible to determine where this inhibition occurs in the brain.

Sources:

http://www.ovid.com/site/catalog/Journal/1190.jsp

http://www.indd.org/research/functional.html