title: Long-term potentiation and memory processes in the psychological works of Sigmund Freud and in the formation of neuropsychiatric symptoms.
abstract: Far from disproving the model of mind functioning proposed by psychoanalysis, the recent advances in neuropsychiatrical research confirmed the crucial ideas of Sigmund Freud. The hypothesis that the origin of mental illnesses lies in the impossibility for a subject to erase the long-term effects of a remote adverse event is in tune with the view that several psychiatric disturbances reflect the activation of aberrant unconscious memory processes. Freud's insights did not stop here, but went on to describe in an extremely precise manner the neural mechanisms of memory formation almost a century before the description of long-term synaptic potentiation.
authors.affiliation: Clinica Neurologica, Dipartimento di Neuroscienze, Università Tor Vergata, via Montpellier 1, 00133 Rome, Italy. centonze@uniroma2.it
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Centonze
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Siracusano
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Calabresi
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Bernardi
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D017774:Long-Term Potentiation / Q000502:physiology*; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology*; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000502:physiology; D009497:Neurotic Disorders / Q000209:etiology / Q000523:psychology; D009771:Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder / Q000523:psychology; D016584:Panic Disorder / Q000523:psychology; D011574:Psychoanalytic Theory; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000523:psychology