sical sensations. This parallels the intensity of flashbacks experienced by combat veterans. Gallagher has found that implicit memory could be strengthened by stimulating noradrenaline in the amygdala, and studies at Yale have suggested that noradrenaline released in response to stress contributes to the powerful flashbacks of Vietnam veterans (Kandel, 1994). Perhaps memories that sexual abuse survivors are normally unable to access are retrieved when their noradrenaline system is activated.All this suggests that the action of endogenous opiates and noradrenaline in the amygdala and hippocampus could begin to provide a biological framework for examining how memories are repressed and later retrieved. It may soon be feasible to examine these ideas directly. Improvements in brain imaging may eventually let scientist examine even small structures in the brain in a safe, noninvasive way. We may then be able to see whether sexual abuse leads to physical changes in the amygdala that reflect a persons’ memories of the event and whether these changes can be modulated by the noradrenergic and opioid systems (Kandel, 1994).Despite this evidence, there is a strong debate that repressed memories may not occur. Opponents to this idea often present the evidence of false memories. Proponents of false memory syndrome have utilized the findings from laboratory studies of the suggestibility of memory to support their stance. A long history of research on human memory documents the extent to which misleading suggestions can distort the recall of events (Lindsay & Read, 1994). In a classic study, Loftus (1993) led five subjects to believe over a period, with the use of misleading and suggestive questioning, that they had been lost in a shopping mall as a child. Loftus concluded that it is indeed possible to implant false memories, which can be as vivid, internally coherent, and detailed as true memories. Loftus coined this phenomenon ‘misinform...
