New research by HHMI scientists shows that the emotional
memory of an experience is malleable.
By manipulating neural circuits in the brain of mice,
scientists have altered the emotional associations of specific memories. The
research, led by Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator Susumu Tonegawa
at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), reveals that the
connections between the part of the brain that stores contextual information
about an experience and the part of the brain that stores the emotional memory
of that experience are malleable.