We’ve been talking lately about how neuroscience researchers explore for possibilities for better medicines.
Lately, there’s been more work exploring fear and memories of fearful experiences, and how to erase those memories…or at least make the memories weaker. Those memories play a big role in anxiety, PTSD, and bipolar disorder. We talked about AKT. Now, a team of researchers at Texas A&M University led by Stephen Maren, Ph.D. recently published their work in Nature Neuroscience, and used prolonged exposure therapy in an effort to extinguish to erase or weaken conditioned fear response memories.
These methods often work well for awhile…but in time about 50% of patients relapse and over the long-term the fear memories take hold with a vengeance.
Briefly, the way these therapies work is to repeatedly expose you to situations, sounds, or other associations with the trauma, over and over and over… with the hope that, in time, the trauma is no longer triggered.
But, unfortunately in many patients, remission from PTSD doesn’t last.
So, knowing that these efforts don’t prevent relapses in some patients, Dr. Maren and his team have designed innovative experiments (in rodents) so they can test the possibility of disrupting the original fear memory… this is the memory that we think starts all the suffering in a person who develops PTSD.
How do you disrupt a memory?
Because here’s the thing. The memory forms at the moment of the trauma…or in the 4-6 hour window that follows. This is a crucial time period.
Keep in mind that the 4-6 hour period from the moment of trauma or shock is the period of memory consolidation, or when the memory forms.
These skilled researchers sought to intervene during the period of time when memories are recalled due to a key stimulus …like a car backfiring… that might trigger a traumatic fear memory of assault, or combat…or a vehicle crash. This little window of time after a sound or other stimulus in the environment triggers the traumatic memory is called re-consolidation. The stimulus can result in reaction behavior… like hiding under a table… or striking someone nearby… or grabbing a weapon.
Think of triggering memories by this method, like noises, as indirect retrieval.
But keep in mind that retrieving memories this way – by indirect retrieval – can help retrieve the traumatic memory but without an attempt to manipulate or otherwise change the original memory. The researchers’ intention is to retrieve that person’s response to it. To weaken or erase a conditioned fear response.
…So back to the rodent experiment.
Backward conditioning was a key intervention the team used. It’s a unique and fresh method to get the rodents to retrieve their own trauma — a conditioned, context-dependent fear memory….without the subject being aware of the experience.
Ok, so this is where it got reeeeeally interesting.
With all this accomplished, they were facing 2 questions:
1) Could they use neural tracing technology to identify basic circuits that were activated in this process?
2) Could they intervene in such circuitry to see if they could alter the process of memory re-consolidation..to the extent they could alter or eliminate the fear memory and its potential to negatively impact behavior.
Then, the team switched on cells in the hippocampal fear memory circuit, which caused the rodents to “freeze” because of prior conditioning to react with fear.
And, in the final stage of this experiment, the team used rapamycin to disrupt this particular circuit associated with conditioned fear memory. (Rapamycin is used to coat heart stents and to prevent rejection of transplanted organ tissue. Weird, huh? )
Rapamycin interrupts the neuron’s ability to produce proteins that are necessary for the circuit to function. As a result, the inclination of the rodent to freeze in fear is weakened or erased altogether.
And it worked. And they did succeed in associating fear memory reconsolidating with circuitry in the hippocampus. They did it!
Basically, these researchers successfully interfered in a circuit to change an original fear memory… which is what begins and is key in trauma-related conditions like PTSD. By forcing the circuit to “forget” the fear, the “freezing” behavior can be weakened or erased completely.
Like, gone.
If you or someone you love suffers from PTSD… a painful fearful memory, that’s triggered by little noises, a sight or smell or other cues, this can be life-changing.
Such an important step toward developing a new way to treat PTSD, or perhaps even substance or alcohol use disorders. Cues that trigger relapse might feasibly be interrupted in the circuit, to prevent it.
Heady, exciting stuff!
Thankfully, as we watch this development unfold, we have IV ketamine treatment NOW. IV ketamine treatment that’s effective in treating PTSD, substance use disorder, alcohol use disorder, social anxiety… all cue-related conditions. And of course, it is robustly effective for treatment-resistant depression and bipolar depression, and there is new exciting evidence of how ketamine is effective in teenagers.
It’s encouraging to see how research is exploding as we continue to seek treatments that can resolve devastating relapse and suffering.
At Innovative Psychiatry, we are meticulous about our outcomes, present our data at scientific meetings, publish our own findings in peer-reviewed journals, and stay up nights and weekends reading. We are on the cutting edge for breakthroughs in psychiatry and neuroscience. You deserve to be treated by experts dedicated to excellence.
If you suffer from any of these conditions, you would probably like some support, some help, and probably some treatment. We’ll schedule an appointment for you to come in and talk about your history, your current difficulties, and the possibility that you might be a candidate for IV ketamine treatment. We won’t be able to make a judgment about that until we talk.
If you’re a candidate, you can come to our practice with confidence that you’re safe even in this ongoing pandemic. Our plasma cell technology for removes 99.99% all viruses, bacteria, and molds from our air and surfaces means you can relax and focus on your treatment… and getting better.
Better days are ahead for you to live, dream, build, and hope.
We really want that for you. And we’re ready to help.
To the restoration of your best self,
