Emotions connected to memories can be rewritten, making bad events in the past seem better and good things appear worse, scientists from Japan and the United States have found. The discovery of the mechanism behind the process helps to explain the power of current psychotherapeutic treatments for mental illnesses such as depression or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), they said, and could offer new avenues for psychiatric help. "These findings validate the success of current psychotherapy, by revealing its underlying mechanism," research leader Susumu Tonegawa told AFP in Tokyo. The team, formed from a collaboration between Japan's RIKEN institute and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US, used optogenetics -- a new brain-control technology which utilises light -- to better understand what happens when we reminisce.
via Health News Headlines - Yahoo News http://ift.tt/1pIJnHb
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