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from Medical Issues
Scientists Find Emotional Experiences
Deeply Embedded In Brain Structures
June 15, 2004 - Researchers Florin Dolcos, Kevin LaBar, and Roberto
Cabeza have recently published the results of a study comparing how the brain
processes traumatic experiences or memories of a first love more deeply in the
brain than other memories.
The scientists are on the faculty of the Center for Cognitive Neurosciences, and
their research was supported by the National Institutes of Health.
The researchers began with what they called the "modulation hypothesis," which
holds that the brain's emotional and memory centers interact to form emotional
memories--and in the case of emotionally powerful events, may then form what
they call an "indelible emotional resonance."
These "emotional memories," note the researchers, are more strongly encoded in
the brain than emotionally "neutral memories." According to Dolcos, "We found
evidence that the interaction between the emotional and memory regions occurred
more systematically and consistently during the formation of emotional memories
than during the formation of neutral memories."
According to Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, president of NARTH, "A high proportion of
homosexually oriented men report early sexual experiences. For men who later
seek counseling to be freed of unwanted same-sex attraction, emotional memories
of the event have been fixed in the networks of the brain in a way that can make
healing through counseling particularly difficult. This new evidence of the power of emotional memories is confirmation of why these feelings retain such compelling power."
Science Daily from Duke University has more
details on this latest brain research.
Updated: 8 February 2008
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