A HIGHLY DEMANDING WORKING MEMORY TASK IS ABLE TO INTERFERE THE RECONSOLIDATION OF A THREAT MEMORY

PICCO SOLEDAD; FERNÁNDEZ, RODRIGO S.; M.E. PEDREIRA

Villa Carlos Paz

Congreso; XXXIVCongreso SAN; 2019

SAN

Consolidated memories can be reactivated into a labile state by the presentation of a reminder. The reactivation of the memory trace is followed by a process of re-stabilization known as reconsolidation. In most of reconsolidation studies, a second task, with similar characteristics to those of the target memory, is used as an amnesic agent.Anxiety manifest as a persistent and generalized defensive system, activated when predicted aversive events are perceived as a threat and uncertain. In laboratory, threat conditioning has been taken as the paradigm for assessing fear memories and anxiety related disorders. In the framework of the reconsolidation the idea that this process would allow to modify this type of maladaptive memories has been proposed.Here we aim to interfere the re-stabilization of an implicit aversive memory using a working memory task, which aimed to overload this transient memory system. To reach such goal, we design a 3 day protocol, and compared a trained threat conditioning group, that 24hs later have or not a reminder, or a fake working memory task; 48hs after, all 3 groups perform an extinction follow by a reinstatement and different valanced and cognitive systems tasks. We revealed that that the memory reconsolidation interference is effective for the implicit memory.