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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Breaking the Wall to Memory
How neuroscience unlocks our mental maps of the past
Daniela Schiller
Daniela Schiller is a professor of neuroscience and psychiatry and the director of the Schiller Lab at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Through a series of ground-breaking experiments, she proved that negative emotions, such as fear, grief and trauma, can be disconnected from the memory that triggers them. This changes the general understanding of memory as immutable. Her research has shown that memory is something that we create and recreate depending on who we are at the time of remembering. Her research has the potential to help people all over the world who have experienced traumatising events in making peace with their past and their memories.