![]() ![]() What really interesting research by a Yale University psychologist named Charles Morgan has shown is that when U.S. But it wasn't, and the distinction was fascinating. The implication is, of course, that a victim should then be able to remember his or her assailant's face perfectly and forever - should in some ways never be able to forget it.īut what we learned in researching this story is basically the opposite, which at first was tremendously disconcerting to me, since it seemed to be showing that our previous reporting was flawed. What we learned in that story is what apparently many jurors bring into the courtroom - a belief that when someone experiences a stressful event, the rush of adrenaline sears that memory into the brain in a way that makes it impossible to forget. ![]() ![]() It was in the context of trying to use a beta blocking drug called propranolol to help prevent trauma victims from developing post-traumatic stress disorder, and the basic memory mechanisms we learned about both in rats and humans involved how adrenaline strengthened the consolidation of memories. Lesley and I did a story a few years ago about the effect of stress and heightened emotion on memory. ![]()
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