Memory and trauma the one most commonly affected by psychological trauma is long-term memory. Missing memories, changes to memory, intensified memories – all are cases of manipulations of long-term memory. Long-term memory is associated with many different areas of the brain including the hippocampus, amygdala, thalamus and hypothalamus, peripheral cortex and temporal cortex. The hippocampus and amygdala have been connected with transference of memory from short-term memory to long-term memory. Thalamus and hypothalamus, located in the forebrain, are part of the limbic system; they are responsible for regulating different hormones and emotional and physical reactions to situations, including emotional stress or trauma. The
Long-term potentiation is an atypical isoform of PKC that lacks a regulatory subunit and thus remains constitutively active. Unlike other kinases that mediate LTP, PKMζ is active not just in the first 30 minutes following LTP induction; rather, PKMζ becomes a requirement for LTP maintenance only during the late phase of LTP. PKMζ thus appears important for the persistence of memory and would be expected to be important in the maintenance of long-term memory. Indeed, administration of a PKMζ inhibitor into the hippocampus of the rat results in retrograde amnesia with intact short-term memory; PKMζ does not play a role in the