FSHD 347 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Traumatic Brain Injury
24 Mar 2019
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Document Summary
Use of memory-blunters at the time of traumatic events could interfere with the normal psychic work and adaptive value of emotionally charged memory. A primary function of the brain"s special way of encoding memories for emotional experiences would seem to be to make us remember important events longer and more vividly than trivial events. Thus, by blunting the emotion impact of events, beta-blockers or their successors would concomitantly weaken our recollection of the traumatic events we have just experienced. Yet often it is important, in the aftermath of such events, that at least someone remembers them clearly. For legal reasons, to say nothing of deeper social and personal ones, the wisdom of routinely interfering with the memories of trauma survivors and witnesses is highly questionable (p. 89). This is to say that while the use of such drugs might prevent or lessen the effects of.
