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Destroying memories to strengthen them

Nature Neuroscience volume 11, pages 1241–1242 (2008)Cite this article

A paper in this issue reports that the core mechanisms that strengthen memories have more in common with the mechanisms that support reconsolidation than those that participate in their initial storage.

Since Herman Ebbinghaus carried out his classic work, psychologists have known that memories are strengthened by the repetition of the new, soon-to-be-learned material. Although neurobiologists have made enormous progress toward a basic understanding of how memories are initially acquired and stored, they have had almost nothing to say about how they are further strengthened by repetition. Perhaps this is because it is natural to assume that memories are strengthened by the same core molecular and cellular mechanisms that participate in their initial storage. If so, then a new study by Lee1 in this issue will come as a surprise to many. The author reports that some of the core mechanisms that strengthen memories have more in common with those that support what is called reconsolidation than they do with those that support initial storage.

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Figure 1: Reconsolidation and memory strengthening: procedural and process similarities.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The author is in the Department of Psychology and Center for Neuroscience, UCB 345, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309, USA. Jrudy@psych.colorado.edu,

    Jerry W Rudy

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  1. Jerry W Rudy
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Rudy, J. Destroying memories to strengthen them. Nat Neurosci 11, 1241–1242 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1108-1241

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1108-1241

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