Neuroscience of Enduring Change: Implications for Psychotherapy, Richard Lane and Lynn Nadel (eds.) (2020)
Lynne Nadel, What Is Memory That It Can Be Changed? In: Neuroscience of Enduring Change. Edited by: Richard D. Lane and Lynne Nadel, Oxford University Press (2020).
Multiple trace theory (MTT) makes two important claims. (1) The hippocampus is involved in the retrieval of episodic memories. (2) When a memory is reactivated, it becomes labile and must be reconsolidated, and within this window, there is a possibility that it can be changed.
This raises two important questions. First, what is the function of consolidation? Consolidation allows us to integrate episodic memories with semantic memories or schemas. Put different, memory consolidation integrates “new experiences into established knowledge networks.” A major goal of psychotherapy is “to create momentary experiences that will lead to lasting changes in semantic memories or schemas.” Second, what is the advantage of having a malleable memory system? The answer is that as time passes we gather new information, and so it is adaptive to be able to update our memories to reflect this new information so that we in turn act accordingly.
Ideas about memory relevant to psychotherapy:
(1) Neurons. Forming memories “involves changing effective connectivity between neurons in an ensemble; the nature of these ensembles likely differs as a function of the kind of memory in question.”
(2) Episodic memory. “Episodic memory is about singular events, occurring in specific spatio-temporal contexts, involving the things, people, and actions comprising the events.” The neurons that make up an episodic memory are found in different cortical zones and the hippocampus.
When an episodic memory is reactivated, certain cortical elements are cued, and these cortical elements then “activate the hippocampal elements to which they connect.” The memory then becomes conscious. If an episodic memory is not reactivated, it cannot be changed. But reactivation is not enough to change an episodic memory.
Reactivated memories generate predictions — for example, “what I might see if I turn the corner in a familiar house I’ve lived in for years.” When our predictions do not come to pass, there is a “mismatch” or “prediction error.” Updating an episodic memory requires an optimal level of prediction error; the prediction error cannot be too small or too great
Nadel and her colleagues devised a study to better understand memory reconsolidation. Participants were asked to memorize a list of objects (Set 1) in a certain room (Room A). Two days later, they participants returned but were divided in two groups. The first group was put in Room A and reminded of Set 1. The second group was put in Room B and not reminded of Set 1. Both groups then learned a new list of objects, Set 2. The first, but not second, group “reported a significant number of Set 2 items as having belonged to Set 1.” The experimenters concluded that it was primarily being in the same room that had reactivating the first group’s memory of Set 1.
Some key findings about episodic memory updating. (a) A memory must first be reactivated in order for it to be updated. There are different ways to reactivate a memory, e.g., mind-wandering, dreams, and “something in the current situation that is similar to a previously stored memory, perhaps a person, or some salient object/event shared by the prior experience and the present circumstance.” Moreover, your emotional state can also make you more likely to have a memory reactivated. (b) A reactivated memory can only be updated if there is prediction error. “In the absence of PE, reactivated memories would return to their preactivation state eventually, although during the time they are destabilized they are open to being strengthened or weakened or even erased.”
(3) Semantic Memory. Some semantic memories are explicit (e.g., concepts and categories) and some are implicit (e.g., “action schemas that tie these to behaviors through scripts”). Most researchers agree that “semantic memories, facts, scripts, and schemas engage neural systems outside the hippocampal system, in cortical and subcortical regions.” It takes much longer to change semantic memories than it takes to change episodic memories. “This makes sense, intuitively — episodic knowledge is based on a single experience, by definition,” whereas semantic knowledge “is the aggregate of multiple experiences.”
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Ryan Smith, The Three-Process Model of Implicit and Explicit Emotion. In: Neuroscience of Enduring Change. Edited by: Richard D. Lane and Lynne Nadel, Oxford University Press (2020).
The integrated memory model (IMM) holds that “whenever episodic memory, semantic memory, or emotional responses are activated, the other two are activated as well.”
The juxtaposition or mismatch can be implicit or explicit.
Multiple trace theory (MTT) makes two important claims. (1) The hippocampus is involved in the retrieval of episodic memories. (2) When a memory is reactivated, it becomes labile and must be reconsolidated, and within this window, there is a possibility that it can be changed.
This raises two important questions. First, what is the function of consolidation? Consolidation allows us to integrate episodic memories with semantic memories or schemas. Put different, memory consolidation integrates “new experiences into established knowledge networks.” A major goal of psychotherapy is “to create momentary experiences that will lead to lasting changes in semantic memories or schemas.” Second, what is the advantage of having a malleable memory system? The answer is that as time passes we gather new information, and so it is adaptive to be able to update our memories to reflect this new information so that we in turn act accordingly.
Ideas about memory relevant to psychotherapy:
(1) Neurons. Forming memories “involves changing effective connectivity between neurons in an ensemble; the nature of these ensembles likely differs as a function of the kind of memory in question.”
(2) Episodic memory. “Episodic memory is about singular events, occurring in specific spatio-temporal contexts, involving the things, people, and actions comprising the events.” The neurons that make up an episodic memory are found in different cortical zones and the hippocampus.
When an episodic memory is reactivated, certain cortical elements are cued, and these cortical elements then “activate the hippocampal elements to which they connect.” The memory then becomes conscious. If an episodic memory is not reactivated, it cannot be changed. But reactivation is not enough to change an episodic memory.
Reactivated memories generate predictions — for example, “what I might see if I turn the corner in a familiar house I’ve lived in for years.” When our predictions do not come to pass, there is a “mismatch” or “prediction error.” Updating an episodic memory requires an optimal level of prediction error; the prediction error cannot be too small or too great
Nadel and her colleagues devised a study to better understand memory reconsolidation. Participants were asked to memorize a list of objects (Set 1) in a certain room (Room A). Two days later, they participants returned but were divided in two groups. The first group was put in Room A and reminded of Set 1. The second group was put in Room B and not reminded of Set 1. Both groups then learned a new list of objects, Set 2. The first, but not second, group “reported a significant number of Set 2 items as having belonged to Set 1.” The experimenters concluded that it was primarily being in the same room that had reactivating the first group’s memory of Set 1.
Some key findings about episodic memory updating. (a) A memory must first be reactivated in order for it to be updated. There are different ways to reactivate a memory, e.g., mind-wandering, dreams, and “something in the current situation that is similar to a previously stored memory, perhaps a person, or some salient object/event shared by the prior experience and the present circumstance.” Moreover, your emotional state can also make you more likely to have a memory reactivated. (b) A reactivated memory can only be updated if there is prediction error. “In the absence of PE, reactivated memories would return to their preactivation state eventually, although during the time they are destabilized they are open to being strengthened or weakened or even erased.”
(3) Semantic Memory. Some semantic memories are explicit (e.g., concepts and categories) and some are implicit (e.g., “action schemas that tie these to behaviors through scripts”). Most researchers agree that “semantic memories, facts, scripts, and schemas engage neural systems outside the hippocampal system, in cortical and subcortical regions.” It takes much longer to change semantic memories than it takes to change episodic memories. “This makes sense, intuitively — episodic knowledge is based on a single experience, by definition,” whereas semantic knowledge “is the aggregate of multiple experiences.”
* * * * *
Ryan Smith, The Three-Process Model of Implicit and Explicit Emotion. In: Neuroscience of Enduring Change. Edited by: Richard D. Lane and Lynne Nadel, Oxford University Press (2020).
The integrated memory model (IMM) holds that “whenever episodic memory, semantic memory, or emotional responses are activated, the other two are activated as well.”
Implicit emotion, different types. (a) Unconsciously caused emotion: when I display an objective emotional reaction (i.e., physiological, neural, behavioral) but don’t know what stimuli triggered this reaction. (b) Unconsciously represented emotion: when I say I’m not having an emotional reaction even though I’m displaying an objective emotional reaction. (c) Unconscious affective learning: when I display an objective emotional reaction and know I’m having an emotional reaction, but I don’t know what stimuli triggered this reaction. An example of (c): “Every time I walk into this room I feel really uncomfortable, but I don’t know why.”
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Hanna Levenson, Lynne Angus, and Erica Pool, Viewing Psychodynamic/Interpersonal Theory and Practice Through the Lense of Memory Reconsolidation. In: Neuroscience of Enduring Change. Edited by: Richard D. Lane and Lynne Nadel, Oxford University Press (2020).
Memory Reconsolidation
(1) Episodic (autobiographical) memories “are usually personal, imbued with emotion and detail about the time and place of occurrence” — e.g., “I remember when I was 10 years old waiting alone for an hour for Dad to come pick me up from a swimming lesson — it was the longest, most terrifying hour of my life.”
(2) Semantic memories are “concerned with our explicit knowledge of various aspects of the world and our experience in it,” including facts (“I know an Olympic-size pool is 50 meters”), concepts (“What’s a ‘lap’?”), summaries of personal information (“Dad picks me up from swimming every Saturday”), roles (“I’m the swimmer in the family”), and traits (“I am a powerful swimmer”).
Episodic and semantic memories interact with one another. Similar episodic memories eventually form generalized episodic memories (a.k.a. personal semantic memories a.k.a. emotional learning or schema). These memories contain “implicit learned rules, behavioral patterns, and personal meanings” (e.g., “Dad doesn’t pick me up on time, which leaves me with a sense that I must not be very important not only in his eyes but in general”). “These overgeneralizations are internalized and often operate out of conscious awareness.”
During MR, emotional responses, episodic memories, and semantic memories “are all impacted since they do not operate independently from one another; not only are the feelings associated with these personal experiences transformed, but so are the ‘rules,’ expectations, and relationships between ideas.”
The Eight R’s of Memory Reconsolidation:
Hanna Levenson, Lynne Angus, and Erica Pool, Viewing Psychodynamic/Interpersonal Theory and Practice Through the Lense of Memory Reconsolidation. In: Neuroscience of Enduring Change. Edited by: Richard D. Lane and Lynne Nadel, Oxford University Press (2020).
Memory Reconsolidation
(1) Episodic (autobiographical) memories “are usually personal, imbued with emotion and detail about the time and place of occurrence” — e.g., “I remember when I was 10 years old waiting alone for an hour for Dad to come pick me up from a swimming lesson — it was the longest, most terrifying hour of my life.”
(2) Semantic memories are “concerned with our explicit knowledge of various aspects of the world and our experience in it,” including facts (“I know an Olympic-size pool is 50 meters”), concepts (“What’s a ‘lap’?”), summaries of personal information (“Dad picks me up from swimming every Saturday”), roles (“I’m the swimmer in the family”), and traits (“I am a powerful swimmer”).
Episodic and semantic memories interact with one another. Similar episodic memories eventually form generalized episodic memories (a.k.a. personal semantic memories a.k.a. emotional learning or schema). These memories contain “implicit learned rules, behavioral patterns, and personal meanings” (e.g., “Dad doesn’t pick me up on time, which leaves me with a sense that I must not be very important not only in his eyes but in general”). “These overgeneralizations are internalized and often operate out of conscious awareness.”
During MR, emotional responses, episodic memories, and semantic memories “are all impacted since they do not operate independently from one another; not only are the feelings associated with these personal experiences transformed, but so are the ‘rules,’ expectations, and relationships between ideas.”
The Eight R’s of Memory Reconsolidation:
- Retrieve and reactive old memories and associated feelings — with or without conscious awareness or intention.
- Concurrently, respond with (or facilitate awareness of) disconfirming (novel) knowledge that constitutes an experiential mismatch re-encoding of old memories (emotional semantic structures) through reconsolidation.
- Repeat and reinforce the strength of new memories by facilitating new ways of behaving and experiencing the world in a variety of contexts.
- Reassess for shifts in client (e.g., more adaptive behavior, lack of reactivation, new understanding).
The juxtaposition or mismatch can be implicit or explicit.
(1) Implicit. The client’s schema (semantic memory) is activated implicitly by his relationship with the therapist; e.g., “through the transference-countertransference process the client is repeatedly reminds of his tyrannical father.” The mismatch experience occurs when the therapist “creates a novel situation by assuming/expressing a sufficiently different attitude.” Instead of interpreting the client’s inappropriate behavior (e.g., “Don’t you see that you are acting as if I were your father?”), the therapist “disembeds from the role into which he or she is being recruited (e.g., tyrannical father), and simultaneously implicitly invites the client to join him or her in a new relationship experience where the therapist can be experienced as caring and supportive (e.g., nonfather like).”
(2) Explicit. During these times, the semantic memory has also been activated. Example: While the client “is emotionally recalling how ashamed he is for not standing up to his tyrannical father (reactivation of the old emotional learning), the therapist reminds him, ‘You were just a child.’ At this point this is obvious, but previously unembraced ‘truth,’ pointing out how young (and powerless) he was, is now explicitly at odds with his age-old ‘shameful truth’ (‘I should have stood up to him’). Such a juxtaposition has the potential to set in motion a profound experiential transformation (via MR) of his model of the way his relational world works.”
Brief Dynamic Therapy (Levenson, 2017). (1) Attachment theory “helps explain why people behave as they do — what motivates them.” People “are hard-wired to turn toward others (especially in times of stress) for a sense of felt security.” (2) Its experiential-affective emphasis “focuses on the therapeutic process of change — what needs to shift for change to occur.” (3) The interpersonal-relational frame “takes into account what is being contributed independently and synergistically by both client and therapist.” Two major goals: (1) “having new experiences of one’s sense of self and others” and (2) “having new understandings about self and interpersonal patterns.”
Brief Dynamic Therapy (Levenson, 2017). (1) Attachment theory “helps explain why people behave as they do — what motivates them.” People “are hard-wired to turn toward others (especially in times of stress) for a sense of felt security.” (2) Its experiential-affective emphasis “focuses on the therapeutic process of change — what needs to shift for change to occur.” (3) The interpersonal-relational frame “takes into account what is being contributed independently and synergistically by both client and therapist.” Two major goals: (1) “having new experiences of one’s sense of self and others” and (2) “having new understandings about self and interpersonal patterns.”
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