The acute effects of psychoactive drugs on emotional episodic memory encoding, consolidation, and retrieval: A comprehensive review.
Manoj K Doss, Harriet de Wit, David A Gallo
Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews July 1, 2023 Peer reviewed DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2023.105188 via PubMed
Summary
Psychoactive drugs influence how emotional episodic memories are formed, stabilized, and accessed. Some drugs impair memory formation (like alcohol and THC), while others enhance it (like dextroamphetamine). GABAA sedatives can enhance emotional memories after they are formed, but this effect may decrease over time. Additionally, retrieving memories while under the influence of certain drugs can distort them, particularly for emotional memories. These findings have implications for understanding drug use and abuse.
Study at a glance
| Key finding | Psychoactive drugs can impair or enhance the encoding of emotional memories, with effects varying by drug type and timing. |
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Abstract
Psychoactive drugs modulate learning and emotional processes in ways that could impact their recreational and medical use. Recent work has revealed how drugs impact different stages of processing emotional episodic memories, specifically encoding (forming memories), consolidation (stabilizing memories), and retrieval (accessing memories). Drugs administered before encoding may preferentially impair (e.g., GABAA sedatives including alcohol and benzodiazepines, Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol or THC, ketamine), enhance (e.g., dextroamphetamine and dextromethamphetamine), or both impair and enhance (i.e., ± 3,4-methylenedioxymethylamphetamine or MDMA) emotionally negative and positive compared to neutral memories. GABAA sedatives administered immediately post-encoding (during consolidation) can preferentially enhance emotional memories, though this selectivity may decline or even reverse (i.e., preferential enhancement of neutral memories) as the delay between encoding and retrieval increases. Finally, retrieving memories under the effects of THC, dextroamphetamine, MDMA, and perhaps GABAA sedatives distorts memory, with potentially greater selectively for emotional (especially positive) memories. We review these effects, propose neural mechanisms, discuss methodological considerations for future work, and speculate how drug effects on emotional episodic memory may contribute to drug use and abuse.