Kikuchi, H., Fujii, T., Abe, N., Suzuki, M., Takagi, M., Mugikura, S., & ... Mori, E. (2010). Memory repression: brain mechanisms underlying dissociative amnesia. Journal Of Cognitive Neuroscience, 22(3), 602-613. Retrieved November 14, 2011 from Academic Search Premier.
Dissociative amnesia usually occurs after a traumatic or stressful event. Memory repression is thought to cause a deficit in memory retrieval. In this study, the researchers utilized an fMRI on patients with dissociative amnesia in order to determine the neural activity that is associated with memory retrieval. Two patients who were diagnosed as having dissociative amnesia participated in this study.
Each patient was given three categories of face photographs and three categories of peopleʼs names that went along with the photographs that received. The photographs were divided into those that the patients recognized and those that the patients didn’t recognize due to the fact that they were mere acquaintances. Also, the researchers added photographs that were utilized as the control and meant to distract the participants. While the fMRI was performed, the patients were shown the photographs. The patients were then expected to indicate whether or not they were acquainted with the individuals on a personal level. The results of the study showed that in both participants there was increased activity in the pre frontal cortex (pFC) and decreased activity in the hippocampus. After treatment receiving treatment for the amnesia, the brain activation pattern that was changed, disappeared in the individual who was able to recover his memories. In the other patient, it remained unchanged and his memories were not recovered. This study showed that in dissociative amnesia, memory repression is in fact associated with altered neural patterns. Also, it was shown that pFC plays a part in inhibiting hippocampus activity in memory repression.
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