Ledoux on Memory

From a post on Edge.org (an ugly, ugly site, but some cool writing if you can bear it):

Karim Nader did an experiment that convinced me, and many others, that our usual way of thinking [about memory] was wrong. In a nutshell, ...each time a memory is used, it has to be restored as a new memory in order to be accessible later. The old memory is either not there or is inaccessible. In short, your memory about something is only as good as your last memory about it. This is why people who witness crimes testify about what they read in the paper rather than what they witnessed. Research on this topic, called reconsolidation, has become the basis of a possible treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, drug addiction, and any other disorder that is based on learning.