New York University's Emotional Brain Institute continues to publish exciting research. Most recently
Elizabeth Phelps has spoken about the latest study,
Preventing return of fear using reconsolidation update. In NIH's review of the study highlights it as evidence that noninvasive techniques can block a conditional fear in humans:
Scientists have for the first time selectively blocked a conditioned fear memory in humans with a behavioral manipulation. Participants remained free of the fear memory for at least a year. The research builds on emerging evidence from animal studies that reactivating an emotional memory opens a 6-hour window of opportunity in which a training procedure can alter it.
"Our results suggest a non-pharmacological, naturalistic approach to more effectively manage emotional memories," said Elizabeth Phelps, Ph.D., of New York University, a grantee of the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).
