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Emotionally charged memories are stored in long-term memory and are generally considered indelible. This phenomenon becomes maladaptive when circumstances change but fear and other forms of intense arousal do not diminish. In a 3-day protocol, researchers examined the process of consolidation of fearful associations and their reversibility in 60 healthy volunteers.
On day 1, participants received mild electrical shocks while being shown pictures of spiders (fearful stimuli). Researchers then measured participants’ startle responses to a loud noise; these were greater when the noise was paired with fearful than with neutral stimuli. On day 2, some subjects received propranolol (40 mg) or placebo and viewed the spider pictures to reactivate th…