Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-20T04:06:04.389Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Amnesia for Traumatic Events Among Recent Survivors: A Pilot Study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2014

Yoram Yovell ,
Yair Bannett  and
Arieh Y. Shalev
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Objective:

Traumatic amnesia has been amply documented in the psychoanalytic literature but inconsistently in the research literature.

Method:

Six trauma patients were followed prospectively. Survivors were interviewed 7, 30, and 120 days following the traumatic event. Each interview documented in detail their recollections of the day of their trauma.

Results:

In four subjects who did not develop posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), we found brief, stable, and persiste memory gaps, which coincided with the moment of greatest emotional intensity. In two subjects who developed PTSD, we found, in addition to the previous form of amnesia, longer, progressive, and unstable memory gaps.

Discussion:

Neurobiological research offers two explanatory mechanisms for the observations: A failure of acquisition of episodic memories may account for the stable deficits seen in all subjects. This could coincide with stress-induced malfunction of the hippocampal declarative memory system. A failure of spontaneous recall may account for the more extended traumatic amnesia that was observed in PTSD patients. This resembles the psychoanalytic description of repression.

Conclusion:

These preliminary findings suggest that brief, irreversible memory gaps are common in trauma survivors, whereas longer, progressive, and potentially reversible amnesia occurs among survivors who develop PTSD.

Type
Original Research
Information
CNS Spectrums , Volume 8 , Issue 9: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder , September 2003 , pp. 676 - 685
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2003

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

1.Breuer, J, Freud, S. Studies on Hysteria. Standard ed. Vol 2. London, England: Hogarth Press; 1955.Google Scholar
2.Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. 4th ed. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association; 1994.Google Scholar
3.Freud, S. Repression. Standard ed. Vol 14. London, England: Hogarth Press; 1957.Google Scholar
4.Freud, S. Extracts From the Fliess Papers. Standard ed. Vol 1. London, England: Hogarth Press; 1966.Google Scholar
5.McHugh, PR. Psychiatric misadventures. Am Scholar. 1992;61:487–510.Google Scholar
6.Loftus, EF. The reality of repressed memories. Am Psychol. 1993;48:518–537.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
7.Loftus, EF. The Myth of Repressed Memory: False Memories and Allegations of Sexual Abuse. New York, NY: St. Martin's Press; 1994.Google Scholar
8.Jacobs, WJ, Nadel, L. Stress-induced recovery of fears and phobias. Psychol Rev. 1985;92:512–531.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
9.LeDoux, JE. The Emotional Brain. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster; 1996.Google Scholar
10.Gazzaniga, MS. Nature's Mind. New York, NY: Basic Books; 1992.Google Scholar
11.Gazzaniga, MS. Cerebral specialization and interhemispheric communication: does ns of the corpus callosum enable the human condition? Brain. 2000;123:1293–1326.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
12.Ramachandran, VS. Phantom limbs, neglect syndromes, repressed memories and Freudian psychology. Int Rev Neurobiol. 1994;37:291–333.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
13.Ramachandran, VS, Blakeslee, S. Phantoms in the Brain. New York, NY: Harper Collins; 1998.Google Scholar
14.Nader, K, Schafe, GE, LeDoux, JE. Fear memories require protein synthesis in the amygdala for consolidation after retrieval. Nature. 2000;406:686–687.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
15.Neisser, U, Harasch, N. Phantom flashbulbs: false recollections of hearing the news about Challenger. In: Winograd, E, Neisser, U, eds. Affect and Accuracy in Recall: Studies of “Flashbulb” Memories. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press; 1992:9–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
16.van der Kolk, BA, Fisler, R. Dissociation and the fragmentary nature of traumatic memories: overview and explanatory study. J Trauma Stress. 1995;8:505–525.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
17.Galea, S, Ahern, J, Resnick, H, et al.Psychological sequelae of the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York City. N Engl J Med. 2002;346:982–987.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
18.Sargeant, W, Slater, E. Amnestic syndromes in war. Proc R Soc Med. 1941;34:757–764.Google Scholar
19.Elliott, DM. Traumatic events: prevalence and delayed recall in the general population. J Consult Clin Psychol. 1997;65:811–820.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
20.Southwick, SM, Morgan, CA, Nicolaou, AL, Charney, DS. Consistency of memory for combat-related traumatic events in veterans of Operation Desert Storm. Am J Psychiatry. 1997;154:173–177.Google ScholarPubMed
21.Brandes, D, Ben-Schachar, G, Gilboa, A, et al.PTSD symptoms and cognitive performance in recent trauma survivors. Psychiatry Res. 2002;110:231–238.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
22.Milad, MR, Quirk, GJ. Neurons in medial prefrontal cortex signal memory for fear extinction. Nature. 2002;420:70–74.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
23.Markowitsch, HJ. Retrograde amnesia: similarities between organic and psychogenic forms. Neurol Psychiat Brain Res. 1996;4:1–8.Google Scholar
24.Ellis, AW, Young, AW. Human Cognitive Neuropsychohgy. Hove, East Sussex, England: Psychology Press; 1996.Google Scholar
25.Shallice, T. Case-study approach in neurpsychological research. J Clin Neuropsychol. 1979;1:183–211.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
26.Shalev, AY, Pitman, RK, Orr, SP, et al.Auditory startle in trauma survivors with PTSD: a prospective study. Am J Psychiatry. 2000;157:255–261.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
27.Spitzer, RL, Williams, JBW, Gibbon, M, First, MB. Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID-IV). Biometric Research Department, New York State Psychiatric Institute.Google Scholar
28.Blake, DD, Weathers, FW, Nagy, LM, et al.The developmentof a clinician-administered PTSD scale. J Trauma Stress. 1995;8:75–90.Google Scholar
29.Brown, R, Kulik, J. Flashbulb memories. Cognition. 1977;5:73–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
30.Cahill, L, Prins, B, Weber, M, McGaugh, JL. Beta-adrenergic activation and memory for emotional events. Nature. 1994;371:702–704.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
31.Williams, LM. Recall of childhood trauma: a prospective study of women's memories of child sexual abuse. J Consult Clin Psychol. 1994;62:1167–1176.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
32.Tulving, E, Markowitsch, HJ. Episodic and declarative memory: role of the hippocampus. Hippocampus. 1998;8:198–204.3.0.CO;2-G>CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
33.McEwen, BS, Sapolsky, RM. Stress and cognitive function. Curr Opin Neurobiol. 1995;5:205–216.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
34.Sapolsky, RM. Why stress is bad for your brain. Science. 1996;273:749–750.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
35.Starkman, MN, Gebarski, SS, Berent, S, Schteingart, DE. Hippocampal formation volume, memory dysfunction, and cortisol levels in patients with Cushing's syndrome. Biol Psychiatry. 1992;32:756–765.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
36.Kandel, ER. Biology and the future of psychoanalysis: a new intellectual framework for psychiatry revisited. Am J Psychiatry. 1999;156:505–524.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
37.Benson, DF, Geschwind, N. Shrinking retrograde amnesia. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. 1967;30:539–544.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
38.Fink, GR, Markowitsch, HJ, Reinkemeier, M, et al.A PET-study of autobiographical memory recognition. J Neurosri. 1996;16:4275–4282.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
39.Tulving, E, Kapur, S, Markowitsch, HJ, et al.Neuroanatomical correlates of retrieval in episodic memory: auditory sentence recognition. Proc Natl Acad Set U S A. 1994;91:2012–2015.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
40.Tulving, E, Kapur, S, Craik, FIM, et al.Hemispheric encoding/retrieval asymmetry in episodic memory: positron emission tomography findings. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 1994;91:2016–2020.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed