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Disruption of reconsolidation processes is a balancing act – can it really account for change in psychotherapy?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 June 2015

Rainer Spanagel
Affiliation:
Institute of Psychopharmacology, Central Institute of Mental Health, Faculty of Medicine Mannheim, Heidelberg University, J5, D-68159 Mannheim, Germany. rainer.spanagel@zi-mannheim.de
Martin Bohus
Affiliation:
Department of Psychosomatics and Psychotherapeutic Medicine, Central Institute of Mental Health, Faculty of Medicine Mannheim, Heidelberg University, J5, D-68159 Mannheim, Germany. martin.bohus@zi-mannheim.dehttp://www.zi-mannheim.de/en/research/departments/psychosomatics-psychotherapeutic-medicine-e.html

Abstract

Lane et al. argue that any psychotherapeutic intervention at its core acts on reactivated memories via the process of reconsolidation which leads to modified memory traces. From our perspective, this model (1) only explains a small subsegment of psychotherapeutic mechanisms and (2) ignores the difficulties of generating reliable experimental conditions that allow interference with reconsolidation processes and – if successful – their transient nature.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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References

Schwabe, L., Nader, K. & Pruessner, J. C. (2014) Reconsolidation of human memory: Brain mechanisms and clinical relevance. Biological Psychiatry 76(4):274–80.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
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