July 27, 2026
“Propranolol before reactivation is the best-supported drug effect in the entire human aversive-memory literature, and the clinical reports still come back mixed – the authors put that down to non-pharmacological factors, above all how well the lab models of aversive memory map onto patients. My own reading is that this points the clinician at the reactivation rather than at the drug.”
“The same procedure that barely touched intense fear when delivered immediately worked after a 14-day delay, which makes timing a mechanism rather than a scheduling detail.”
“The largest between-group effect this trial produced was on patient satisfaction, not on depression – rescripting made a stronger impression on patients than on their symptom scores.”
“The protocol was not rejected – its one trial found it effective, it fit none of the guideline's categories, and it was left unrecommendable on precision grounds.”
“In chicks, memantine protects an old memory by preventing it from ever becoming editable – the exact property that exposure therapy is betting it can exploit.”
“A model that names what it has not yet shown is more clinically trustworthy than a method that promises what the model has not yet shown.”