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.