Memory reconsolidation · prediction error · mismatch
The old sentence is unlocked for a few hours.
Sixty-five people. Reminder, then extinction ten minutes later: fear stayed down. Same extinction six hours later: fear came back.
After you recall an old learning, the file is labile for a few hours. A mismatch the old sentence cannot explain can be written in. Then it locks again.
You already bought the affirmation app. Then you said I am confident two hundred times. The old scene never left the drawer.
Name it, then prove it wrong
Write one line you actually run. Say it until the body marks a number. Then do one small act that sentence cannot explain, before the afternoon is gone.
I choke when I send the invoice. I freeze at the door. Pick the one that still owns a Tuesday.
Say it out loud and wait for the chest or the jaw to mark a 1-to-10, because that mark is the retrieval and it is the only way the folder actually leaves the drawer.
Then live the mismatch. Send one invoice. Stand in the doorway for ten breaths and walk in. One act. Small enough to finish today, and large enough that the old sentence has no story left for what you just did.
Stop. Leave the old line alone tonight. Do not rehearse I choke. Do not stack a new mantra on top. The rewrite happens in the hours after the surprise, while the file is still open.
If naming the old sentence spikes the chest past a number you can sit with, stop. Sit until that 1-to-10 drops. Then do the mismatch. That first sit is Protocol 01. Free. The mismatch still needs a body quiet enough to finish the act.
Ten minutes held. Six hours did not.
Same extinction training. Different clock. Only the group that unlearned inside the window stayed down the next day, and a year later in the people they found.
Schiller and Phelps, Nature, 2010. DOI 10.1038/nature08637. PMID 20010606.
Day one used two coloured squares, and one of those squares was paired with a mild wrist shock on 38 percent of trials, with skin conductance as the fear measure. Day two was extinction: squares, no shock. One group (n=20) got a single reminder of the shock square, waited ten minutes, then extinguished. A second group (n=23) got the same reminder and waited six hours. A third group (n=22) skipped the reminder. Day three they saw the squares again.
Fear came back in the no-reminder arm and in the six-hour arm. The ten-minute arm stayed flat. Same unlearning. The clock decided whether the old file got rewritten or just covered over for a night.
Nineteen of the original sixty-five came back at ten to fourteen months. Eight from the ten-minute arm. Eleven from the arms that had recovered. Four unsignalled shocks, then the squares again. Reinstatement showed in the collapsed six-hour and no-reminder people. The ten-minute remnant stayed quiet. Small follow-up. Honest size. The direction matched day three.
A second experiment put two shock squares in the same person (n=18). Only one square got the reminder. Ten minutes later, both went through extinction. The next day, only the reminded square stayed down. The other shock square came back. You rewrite the file you actually opened.
Later labs have mixed luck with that exact ten-minute protocol, which is why this page quotes the clock and the surprise instead of selling a coloured-square session as a guaranteed home spell you can run on any old Tuesday and call done.
A matching reminder leaves the file shut
Retrieval by itself does not open the file. The reminder has to surprise the old prediction. Sevenster called that prediction error, and without it the beta blocker did nothing.
Sevenster with Kindt, Science, 2013. DOI 10.1126/science.1231357. PMID 23413355. Three groups. Fifteen people each.
Day one they learned which picture predicted a shock. Day two they got one reminder, then 40 mg propranolol. Day three they tested startle.
When learning had been 100 percent and the reminder also brought the shock, nothing new happened. No prediction error. Startle stayed. When the reminder omitted a shock that had always come, expectancy dropped and startle went. When learning had been only 33 percent and the reminder brought a shock, expectancy rose and startle went. Both surprises opened the file. The matching reminder left it shut.
Close your eyes. A drawer. A folder on the desk. A line in the margin the old sentence has no story for. That is the picture.
That is why two hundred I-am-confident lines miss. They agree with the wish. They do not disagree with I choke on the invoice, so the old prediction never fails and the drawer never opens no matter how pretty the stack looks on the phone.
The amygdala went quiet in the window
Agren photographed the basolateral amygdala after the same ten-minute versus six-hour split. Kindt showed a pill without a recall leaves the fear standing.
Agren's Uppsala group, Science, 2012. DOI 10.1126/science.1223006. PMID 22997340. Thirty people sat the conditioning. Twenty-two acquired. Those twenty-two split into a ten-minute extinction arm and a six-hour arm. In the scanner, the amygdala trace predicted later fear when reconsolidation had been allowed to finish. Extinction inside the window wiped that trace and loosened the wider fear circuit.
Kindt's Amsterdam lab, Nature Neuroscience, 2009. DOI 10.1038/nn.2271. PMID 19219038. Forty milligrams of propranolol before a reminder (n=20) erased startle the next day and blocked reinstatement. Placebo with the same reminder (n=20) kept the startle. The same pill with no reminder (n=20) left fear intact. People still knew which picture meant shock. The knowledge stayed. The body stopped answering it.
Nader's 2000 rat paper put the protein-synthesis lock in the amygdala after retrieval. Nature 406:722-726. DOI 10.1038/35021052. PMID 10963596. After you pull the folder, the trace has to be rebuilt. That rebuild is the hours you actually have, and it is why a matching reminder wastes the afternoon.
The home sit does not copy the pill. The home sit copies the reminder plus the mismatch, and Kindt's no-reminder arm is the warning that a calm chemical with the drawer still shut does nothing to the file you actually wanted changed.
The drowsy hour plants a scene
SATS writes a new scene as you fall asleep. This sit opens an old sentence while you are awake, then writes a mismatch before the lock returns.
I already mapped the drowsy-hour install on SATS, Neville's state akin to sleep. Use that page for the hypnagogic plant. Use this afternoon for the sentence that still owns a Tuesday.
One old line. One act it cannot explain. Same day. Then leave it.
Do the mismatch before the afternoon is gone
Write the old sentence in one line. Mark the 1-to-10. Finish one act that sentence has no story for. Put the paper away. The old line stays off the tongue tonight. If the chest spikes first, Protocol 01 is that sit. Then send the invoice.
After the first mismatch
Do I need the beta blocker from the lab?
Kindt used 40 mg propranolol in a lab. Tonight's sit is recall plus a mismatch the old sentence cannot explain. No pill on this page.
Can I stack I-am-worthy lines inside the window?
A new line that agrees with the old prediction leaves the file shut. I am confident, while the body still runs I choke on the invoice, is a match. Send the invoice. That is the mismatch.
How long do I have after I say the old line?
Schiller put extinction ten minutes after the reminder, or six hours after. Ten minutes held. Six hours did not. Do the mismatch the same afternoon. Do not wait for a weekend retreat.
Is this the drowsy-hour scene from SATS?
SATS plants a scene as you fall asleep. This sit names an old sentence while you are awake, then lives a mismatch before the lock returns. Use the SATS page for the drowsy hour.
Is this a trauma clinic?
Shock squares and startle. Literature. If a memory arrives with panic or flashback, call a clinician. Do not run tonight's sit on a live trauma.
Sources
Schiller D et al. "Preventing the return of fear in humans using reconsolidation update mechanisms." Nature 2010;463(7277):49-53. DOI 10.1038/nature08637. PMID 20010606. Exp 1: 10-min n=20, 6-h n=23, no-reminder n=22. Exp 2 n=18, reminder specific to one CS. 1-year remnant n=19 (10-min n=8, collapsed recovery arms n=11). doi.org/10.1038/nature08637 · europepmc.org/article/MED/20010606
Sevenster D, Beckers T, Kindt M. "Prediction error governs pharmacologically induced amnesia for learned fear." Science 2013;339(6121):830-833. DOI 10.1126/science.1231357. PMID 23413355. Three groups n=15. Negative PE, no PE, positive PE. Propranolol 40 mg after reminder. Startle dropped only when expectancy moved. doi.org/10.1126/science.1231357 · europepmc.org/article/MED/23413355
Agren T et al. "Disruption of reconsolidation erases a fear memory trace in the human amygdala." Science 2012;337(6101):1550-1552. DOI 10.1126/science.1223006. PMID 22997340. 30 recruited, 22 acquired, 10-min vs 6-h extinction after reminder. fMRI basolateral amygdala trace predicted later fear when the window was missed. doi.org/10.1126/science.1223006 · europepmc.org/article/MED/22997340
Kindt M, Soeter M, Vervliet B. "Beyond extinction: erasing human fear responses and preventing the return of fear." Nature Neuroscience 2009;12(3):256-258. DOI 10.1038/nn.2271. PMID 19219038. Propranolol 40 mg + reminder n=20, placebo + reminder n=20, propranolol with no reminder n=20. Startle gone, expectancy intact, no-reminder arm recovered. doi.org/10.1038/nn.2271 · europepmc.org/article/MED/19219038
Nader K, Schafe GE, LeDoux JE. "Fear memories require protein synthesis in the amygdala for reconsolidation after retrieval." Nature 2000;406(6797):722-726. DOI 10.1038/35021052. PMID 10963596. Rat amygdala, post-retrieval protein synthesis. Named as the rebuild lock, no human n on this page. doi.org/10.1038/35021052 · europepmc.org/article/MED/10963596