This was a highly anticipated study. This national research program was launched one year after the attacks of November 2015, to study the construction and evolution of the memory of the attacks, by Inserm, CNRS and HESAM University.
This is an unprecedented study in terms of its sample: the Bataclan victims were all exposed to the same tragic event – whereas in general, studies on post-traumatic stress often include war victims, who have had experiences much more heterogeneous. The researchers, neuroscientists and specialists in experimental psychology, were able to follow them over 10 years after the attack. 100 Bataclan victims agreed to participate. Among them, 57 suffered, or still suffer, from post-traumatic stress disorder.
What did the researchers find?
A link between this disorder and a failure of certain brain mechanisms. Post-traumatic stress disorder results in memories that come back without being able to control them, thoughts that arise all the time, flashbacks, nightmares. The victims constantly relive the attack.
The researchers saw that in this case, it is not only the memory associated with the attack that is hyper-stimulated: the researchers saw an alteration in the control mechanisms of memories, even those which have nothing to do with it. with the trauma. They see a degradation of memory even for trivial thoughts: the control of the brain no longer works well.
They observe that these brain mechanisms are restored when victims recover from post-traumatic stress disorder?
Yes, they even saw that the restoration of this memory control happens before remission. The system repairs itself and then the intrusive thoughts disappear. Without it being yet possible to conclude a cause and effect link.
But this already gives ideas for new treatment protocols: post-traumatic stress disorder could be treated by working on thoughts other than those of the traumatic shock. Today, most therapies involve recollection: patients are asked to recount the attack or accident that traumatized them, it is difficult to bear: 30% of patients stop because they find it too much. hard.
The study of the Bataclan victims provides a new avenue, that of being able to re-muscle the brain in some way, by working with different protocols.
Even beyond post-traumatic shock disorder, this study shows the importance of these mechanisms of memory control, these mechanisms of forgetting: they are active, we can control them, contrary to what we thought until then.
