[magicalhippo]

> I wonder if revisiting memories often enough will reencode them before they are lost?

There's work that suggests our memories are kinda like magnetic core memory[1] in that a read operation is destructive and requires a rewrite.

I heard about it in the context of phobia therapy, where participants would get some drug that for a short term prevented new memories from forming, and then exposing them to their phobia. That would trigger a recall but not the rewrite thanks to the drug, and after just a couple of such sessions their phobia would be gone as there was nothing to recall.

I have a couple of distinct but mundane memories from early childhood, when I was 1-2 years old. I'm nearing my 50s and they're not nearly as vivid now as when I was a teenager say, but I've long suspected that the reason I can still relive them is because I kept recalling those moments.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic-core_memory

[throwanem]

I've heard of beta blockers, specifically propranolol, being used in this way in an experimental PTSD therapy protocol, I think back in the 80s or 90s. It didn't seem to go anywhere, or at least I stopped hearing about it.

This 2016 metareview suggests the reason is insufficient evidence of efficacy, for that and a couple of other anxiety indications: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4724794/