---
title: 'A Good Memory or a Bad One? One Brain Molecule Decides.'
date: 07-09-2022
author: 'Yasemin Saplakoglu'
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    'og:url': 'http://danpercival.com/scratchpad/a-good-memory-or-a-bad-one-one-brain-molecule-decides'
    'og:type': website
    'og:title': 'A Good Memory or a Bad One? One Brain Molecule Decides. | DANPERCIVAL'
    'og:author': 'Dan Percival''s Blog'
---

![Neuroscientists Kay Tye and Hao Li](Tye-Li.jpg "Neuroscientists Kay Tye and Hao Li")

A fascinating article of the role of neurotensin, a small brain peptide that influences if a memory is stored as a good memory or a bad memory

[A Good Memory or a Bad One? One Brain Molecule Decides.](https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-good-memory-or-a-bad-one-one-brain-molecule-decides-20220907)

Every time I wake up in a dream, it always seems to be a bad dream, never a good one. Since dreams are made of memories, maybe my valence system has too much negative bias. May explain why that MDMA treatment that is being pushed for PTSD treatment is working so well, under the influence of MDMA, memories can be recalled without their associated emotion and processed thus clearing the bad emotions associated with trauma.

_From that article The discovery suggests that in its creation of memories, the brain may be biased toward remembering things fearfully — an evolutionary quirk that may have helped to keep our ancestors cautious._

_..._

_It also opens opportunities to probe the biological underpinnings of anxiety, addiction and other neuropsychiatric conditions that may sometimes arise when breakdowns in the mechanism lead to “too much negative processing,” Li said. In theory, targeting the mechanism through novel drugs could be an avenue to treatment._