The integration of new learning into memory networks enables us to draw on past experiences to guide future decisions and behaviors, which is crucial for adaptive functioning. Emotional disorders and other mental health issues can significantly disrupt these processes, often resulting in social and interpersonal challenges. By understanding these disruptions, targeted therapeutic interventions can be developed to enhance memory processing and improve behavioral outcomes.
Our work synthesizes recent advances in emotional memory research—such as episodic memory, mental time travel, cognitive biases, and classical conditioning—to identify mechanism-based interventions and techniques that address key needs in cognitive and pharmacological therapy for mental (and in particular emotional) disorders.