Each of us has moments from our past that we wish we could recall as clearly as when they happened, or unpleasant memories we would rather erase. But for those who have experienced truly traumatic events their memories can be a lifelong painful and debilitating burden. A revolution in the way we perceive memory is currently challenging previously held ideas in neuroscience that events from the past are neatly and immutably stored in our brains. Scientific studies have revealed a far more complex picture. A series of ground-breaking experiments prove that memory is something that we create and recreate depending on who we are at the time of remembering. At Falling Walls, Daniela Schiller, professor of neuroscience and psychiatry and director of the Schiller Lab at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, will explain how we are able to navigate through memory much in the same way as we might navigate a map, and that emotions, such as threat and reward, may be disconnected from the memory that triggers them. These advances in memory research hold promise for people around the world struggling with trauma and addiction.

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