Positive modulation of a neutral declarative memory by a threatening social event.

RODRIGO S. FERNÁNDEZ; LUZ BAVASSI, JORGE CAMPOS , RICARDO F. ALLEGRI , VICTOR A. MOLINA , CECILIA FORCATO, MARÍA E. PEDREIRA.

ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2015

emories can be altered by negative or arousing experiences due to the activation of the stressresponsivesympatho-adrenal-medullary axis (SYM). Here, we used a neutral declarative memory thatwas acquired during multi-trial training to determine the effect of a threatening event on memory withoutemotional valence. To this end, participants received a new threatening social protocol before learningpairs of meaningless syllables and were tested either 15 min, 2 days or 8 days after acquisition. Wefirst demonstrated that this threatening social situation activates not only the SYM axis (Experiment1) and the hypothalamus?pituitary?adrenal axis (HPA; Experiment 2), but also, it improves the acquisitionor early consolidation of the syllable pairs (Experiment 3). This improvement is not a transient effect;it can be observed after the memory is consolidated. Furthermore, this modulation increases the persistenceof memory (Experiment 4). Thus, it is possible to affect memories with specific even