Forgetting Unwanted Memories: Active Forgetting and Implications for the Development of Psychological Disorders

Journal of Personalized Medicine

Pietro Spataro¹  Marco Costanzi²  Beatrice Cianfanelli²  Stefano Lasaponara²  Vincenzo Cestari³  Clelia Rossi-Arnaud³  Alessandro Santirocchi³ 

[1] Department of Economy, Universitas Mercatorum, 00100 Rome, Italy;Department of Human Sciences, Lumsa University, 00193 Rome, Italy;Department of Psychology, Sapienza University, 00185 Rome, Italy;

关键词: forgetting;    neurotransmitter system;    psychopathologies;   

DOI  :  10.3390/jpm11040241

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Intrusive memories are a common feature of many psychopathologies, and suppression-induced forgetting of unwanted memories appears as a critical ability to preserve mental health. In recent years, biological and cognitive studies converged in revealing that forgetting is due to active processes. Recent neurobiological studies provide evidence on the active role of main neurotransmitter systems in forgetting, suggesting that the brain actively works to suppress retrieval of unwanted memories. On the cognitive side, there is evidence that voluntary and involuntary processes (here termed “intentional” and “incidental” forgetting, respectively) contribute to active forgetting. In intentional forgetting, an inhibitory control mechanism suppresses awareness of unwanted memories at encoding or retrieval. In incidental forgetting, retrieval practice of some memories involuntarily suppresses the retrieval of other related memories. In this review we describe recent findings on deficits in active forgetting observed in psychopathologies, like post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, schizophrenia, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Moreover, we report studies in which the role of neurotransmitter systems, known to be involved in the pathogenesis of mental disorders, has been investigated in active forgetting paradigms. The possibility that biological and cognitive mechanisms of active forgetting could be considered as hallmarks of the early onset of psychopathologies is also discussed.

【 授权许可】

Unknown