Dec. 22, 2010 Stress can enhance ordinary, unrelated memories, a
team of neuroscientists has found in a study of laboratory rats.
Their results, which appear in the journal PLoS Biology, may
bolster our understanding of post-traumatic stress disorder
(PTSD) and could offer a pathway for addressing PTSD and related
afflictions. The study was conducted by researchers at the Czech
Republic's Academy of Sciences, the State University of New York
(SUNY) Downstate Medical Center, and Rockefeller University.
"Our results show that stress can activate memory, even if that
memory is unrelated to the stressful experience," explained
André Fenton, the study's lead author and a professor at New
York University's Center for Neural Science. "Additional
investigations into the effects of stress on memories could shed
light on PTSD and other stress-related mood disorders," added
Fenton, who directed the studies while he was a Research
Scientist in the Czech Republic and an associate professor of
physiology and pharmacology a