There has been considerable debate as to whether unique mechanisms are involved in the formation of flashbulb memories, or whether ordinary memory processes are sufficient to account for memories of shocking public events. Sharot et al. found that for individuals who were close to the World Trade Center, the retrieval of 9/11 memories engaged neural systems that are uniquely tied to the influence of emotion on memory. The engagement of these emotional memory circuits is consistent with the unique limbic mechanism that Brown and Kulik suggested. These are the same neural mechanisms, however, engaged during the retrieval of emotional stimuli in the laboratory. The consistency in the pattern of neural responses during the retrieval of emotional scenes presented in the laboratory and flashbulb memories suggests that even though different mechanisms may be involved in flashbulb memories, these mechanisms are not unique to the surprising and consequential nature of the initiating events.