On: Memory in a Labile State: Therapeutic Application1

Dear Editors

Previous to the papers by Nader et al. (2000) and Sara (2000), it was considered that memories, once fixated, were unchangeable and that whenever something was remembered a new inscription was added to that which is already in place. However, experimental work by these authors, subsequently confirmed fully, showed that, at the moment of remembering, this memory is in a labile state and is constructed totally anew. This process was termed ‘memory reconsolidation’. This means that each memory is not an addition to the series of memories related to this memory but an inscription: whatever is new is incorporated into the antecedent, which is restructured in toto, resulting in a single inscription. This is true to the extent that animal experiments showed that, if, at the moment of remembering, synthesis of the memory, which is in a state of reconsolidation, is blocked by inhibiting proteins that intervene in its structuring/inscription, memory of that particular