Therapeutic approaches to psychological trauma in the light of neuroscience: Looking at psychological trauma through the lens of memory consolidation and reconsolidation

As early as the 1960s, neuroscientists highlighted that a recently acquired memory is fragile and must be stabilized to become permanent (consolidation). In the 2000s, they found that old memories become unstable again and susceptible to change when they are reactivated (reconsolidation). They showed that neurovegetative hyperactivity facilitates the consolidation of memories and explains, at least partially, the chronicization of the psychotraumatic syndrome. They also showed that it is possible to attenuate the emotions of an old memory when it is reconsolidated.