By triggering the recall of ordinary events unrelated to the tense experience, a stressful event can help us remember a set of directions, they found.
The researchers believe their findings could be a way of bolstering the understanding of post-traumatic stress disorder and allow more effective treatments to be developed.
Anxiety: Czech and U.S. researchers found stressful experiences could help you remember how to find your way home
A common feature of post-traumatic stress and other mood and anxiety disorders is the formation of negative associations from seemingly innocent stimuli – or the recall of negative experiences, which is stimulated by unrelated events.
The neuroscientists conducted several experiments on rats in a laboratory and found that stressful experiences actually enhanced their ability to recall previously learned information.
The rats were taught to make distinctions between left and right turns when placed in a T-shaped maze.
The next day half of the rats were placed in a deep bucket of water and forced to swim while the others were placed in shallow water where they did not need to swim.
After their dip the rodents were put back inside the maze and those who were forced to swim had a better memory of which direction to turn.
There was a clear link between the stress induced by the swim and the recall of the maze navigation, despite the fact they were completely unrelated, the researchers at the Czech Republic’s Academy of Sciences, the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center, and Rockefeller University concluded.
Professor Andri Fenton, from New York University, who led the study, said: ‘Our results show that stress can activate memory.
‘Additional investigations into the effects of stress on memories could shed light on PTSD and other stress-related mood disorders.’ ( dailymail.co.uk )
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