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Updated: Jul 18, 2026

Disrupting Reconsolidation of Fear Memory in Humans by a Noradrenergic β-Blocker
Published on: December 18, 2014
Noradrenergic control of emotion-induced amnesia and hypermnesia
1Department of Psychiatry, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany. renehurlemann@gmx.de
Abstract:
Emotional memory encoding is associated with retrograde and anterograde episodic memory changes involving amnesia and hypermnesia, respectively. These effects are noradrenergic-dependent and reflect an interaction with emotional arousal and valence. Whereas anterograde amnesic effects most likely result from attentional capture by emotional arousal, retrograde amnesic and hypermnesic effects may reflect a valence-dependent filter mechanism that operates during emotional memory encoding and controls episodic memory access based upon behavioral significance. This filter mechanism may originnate in amygdala-hippocampal interactions that are modulated by both ascending locus coeruleus and descending prefrontal cortex inputs.
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