Our work is organized around main research questions; what emotional memory is, how we can measure and model it, and how it changes over time. Select a question below to read the full picture and the papers behind it.

The music that transports you back to happy times. The sweaty palms and the knot in your stomach when you are reminded of that presentation that didn't go well. The vivid images of a car accident that keep coming back in the days after. These are all examples of emotional memory.

Emotional memory is an umbrella term that refers to different types of memory that carry an affective load. Some of the memories are of specific events that can be explicitly recalled, such as an accident, or your first kiss. But emotional memory does not have to represent one specific episode; it can also refer to the accumulation of multiple experiences. These experiences can be direct (such as when you are bitten by a dog), indirect (when you see someone else being bitten) or even imagined. And while we assume that emotional memories can be described verbally, some parts of the memory are more implicit, such as when your body automatically responds to things in your environment that once signalled danger, before you are even aware of them.

We all have emotional memories, and that is adaptive in principle. But sometimes these memories can be so distressing or uncontrollable that they give rise to mental disorders. A well-known example is Post-traumatic stress disorder, where intrusive images of trauma interfere with daily functioning. But emotional memories play a role in other disorders as well, such as substance use disorder, depression, eating disorders, and anxiety disorders. In other words, we see emotional memory as a transdiagnostic common cause that lies at the root of a broad range of symptoms, including for example dysfunctional beliefs, compulsive action tendencies, cognitive distortions, intrusive thoughts and images, and hyperarousal. In our work, we aim to investigate how we can best conceptualize emotional memory in common models of mental disorders, and how these memories manifest across them.

To investigate emotional memory we need to be able to measure it in its richness. At the same time, to fundamentally understand how emotional memories trans(form) and manifest, we also need ways to create realistic emotional memories in controlled settings.

To do this, our lab harnesses and actively develops various paradigms, including (trauma) film, (episodic) conditioning, the Trier Social Stress Test, karaoke, autobiographical recall, think/no-think, and computational modeling.

We employ a range of physiological and behavioural measures, including fear-potentiated startle, skin conductance, pupillometry, facial electromyography, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), subjective experiences, declarative memory, and approach-avoidance tendencies. We also use various manipulations, including pharmacological interventions, stress induction, fear extinction, counterconditioning, imagery rescripting, context re-exposure, and sleep.

For a long time, memory was thought of like a filing cabinet: once a memory was stored, it stayed the same until you pulled it out again. Research over the past two decades has overturned this idea. Sometimes when we remember something, that memory becomes temporarily flexible again, and in that window, it can be updated, weakened, or reshaped before it settles back into storage. At the same time, even when an emotional memory is not updated, it can form new connections through which its impact on mood and behaviour can change.

Understanding the fundamental processes that drive emotional memory change is central to our work, especially when it comes to memories that cause distress, such as intrusive or trauma-related memories. This also helps us explain the working mechanisms of existing psychological treatments, such as exposure therapy, Imagery Rescripting, EMDR. In our lab, we study emotional memory change in both clinical and non-clinical populations. We also have collaborations with labs conducting research in non-human animals, as well as with scientist-practitioners working with individuals diagnosed with psychological problems, including mood-, anxiety- and stress-disorders. This allows us to bring fundamental insights from basic neuroscience to the field of mental health, while using clinical observations to test theories about memory plasticity.