title: Neutral mood induction during reconsolidation reduces accuracy, but not vividness and anxiety of emotional episodic memories.
abstract: Consolidated memories become labile upon reactivation and as a result have to go through reconsolidation to become re-stabilized. This property of memory may potentially be used to reduce the impact of highly negative episodic memories. Because detailed and vivid negative memories are mediated by high arousal, if arousal is lessened during reconsolidation, memory accuracy and vividness should diminish. In this study, we examined this hypothesis.
  
  
  
  Participants (N = 72) viewed a stressful, suspenseful video on Day 1 to develop negative episodic memories. Then, 24-29 h later, they saw a brief reminder of the stressful video (or not), and then viewed a neutral, calming (or positive) video. Another 24-29 h later, participants were tested on the accuracy, vividness, and anxiety associated with their memory of the stressful video on Day 1.
  
  
  
  Participants who watched the reminder and then the neutral video showed reduced memory accuracy compared to participants in the other groups. Despite the reduction in memory accuracy, their memory vividness and anxiety associated with the stressful video did not decrease.
  
  
  
  The use of undergraduates prevents generalizations to clinical populations. Also, the study did not test long-term memories that were more than 2 days old.
  
  
  
  Neutral mood induction during reconsolidation reduces the accuracy of highly negative episodic memories.
authors.affiliation: Harvard University, Department of Psychology, 33 Kirkland Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. Electronic address: gliu@psych.umass.edu.
authors.forename: Guanyu
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Harvard University, Department of Psychology, 33 Kirkland Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
authors.forename: Richard J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: McNally
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect / Q000502:physiology*; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001007:Anxiety / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001143:Arousal / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D061212:Memory, Episodic; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000502:physiology*; D013997:Time Factors; D014741:Video Recording; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Emotional memory; Episodic memory; Memory reconsolidation