I was directly countering the statement that people don't get confused between them. Some people DO, and it's far more common and can be less pronounces than PTSD.
So yes, they do get confused in some cases, which supports the notion that they share a lot of wiring in the brain.
"People don't confuse this" is the part I shot down. The rest of the piece is interesting.
I think that’s an ungenerous interpretation that lends itself to nitpicking because it ignores the immediately preceding context.
> very strong neurological similarity between memories and experiences, we know that they can’t be exactly the same
So showing that there are cases where people do confuse the two doesn’t negate the broader point that they’re not exactly the same thing in the brain, does it?
Just to be clear, we’re talking strictly about flashbacks here, right? As I understand it that’s only one kind of symptom so I want to make sure we’re talking about the same one as others don’t seem relevant to this discussion to me but maybe you’re talking about something else.
Assuming it is flashbacks, do you know whether patients are actually unable to distinguish memory from experience structurally within the brain? Or is it more like entering an uncontrolled dream state (eg lucid dream) into a recurring nightmare? For example people have nightmares regularly of being naked in class or have a sudden exam. People while dreaming can do all sorts of complex activities like walking around. People while dreaming also have a debilitating logic and speech impediment, characteristics of PTSD flashbacks. I don’t know about whether people have actual memories appear in dreams. Still, it’s not immediately clear to me that PTSD patients confuse experience and memory vs PTSD patients have stronger memory-driven dreams on loop and are narcoleptic so enter it suddenly. In that case, It’s possible that even the one sentence you decided to focus on isn’t even wrong unless you also classify sleep with a dream pulling from memories as confusing experience and memory.
> The researchers analyzed data from the National Health and Resilience in Veterans Study, a large, long-term study of veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. They found that veterans with PTSD were nearly three times as likely as those without PTSD to report narcolepsy symptoms. When the researchers looked at brain scans of the veterans, they found that those with PTSD had significantly lower levels of hypocretin in their brains. These findings suggest that PTSD may be a risk factor for narcolepsy and that the two disorders may share a similar underlying cause.
To me flashbacks always sounded like they probably reused dream machinery rather than actually confusing experience and memory. I believe PTSD patients are able to distinguish “I relived my trauma yesterday” from “I had the trauma happen again yesterday”.
So in summary, a) the one statement being imprecise isn’t relevant to the point being made b) it’s not actually clear to me we know that the statement is even wrong.
>> So showing that there are cases where people do confuse the two doesn’t negate the broader point that they’re not exactly the same thing in the brain, does it?
Sure, they are different things but the author felt the need to state that they don't get confused - which is a false statement given the existence of PTSD. Since I'm bringing up psychology, I'd say ANY model of how the brain works should also account for the phenomena of transference and projection.
The author is talking about abstract (and physiological) models of how the brain works. To quote someone whom I forget "all models are wrong, but some models are useful". The EMDR model IS useful and has been used to treat millions of people. The authors model is just speculation based on some brain scans - i.e. has not been used for anything useful yet and as such I don't think we can let a falsehood like "people don't get these confused" slide.
So yes, they do get confused in some cases, which supports the notion that they share a lot of wiring in the brain.
"People don't confuse this" is the part I shot down. The rest of the piece is interesting.