There are two ways we can forget a memory that causes unpleasant sensations, be they a humiliating gaffe at some dinner party or an extremely frightening event, say researchers from the University of Cambridge, England, in the October 17th edition of Neuron.
剑桥大学的研究人员表示，对于引起不快感觉的记忆（比如餐桌上的失态表现或者一个令人极度恐惧的事件），忘掉它们有两种方法。这一研究发表在《Neuron》期刊10月17号版上。
Perhaps Freud really was onto something 100 years ago when he suggested that humans have a voluntary repression mechanism that blocks unwanted memories out of consciousness.
100年前，弗洛伊德说到人类有自我主动抑制的机制，把不想要的记忆压制到潜意识里。可能他说的真有一些道理。
We all have moments in life when we encounter reminders of things we would prefer to forget about - when we see something that triggers an unwanted memory, which makes us wince briefly, and we rapidly block it out. This process is not only used for traumatic events.
我们都有这样的时候，不经意间回想起不想记起的记忆——突然看到某个引起回忆的东西，这时，我们就会立即压制回忆。其实这个过程不只是用于创伤性事件。
The researchers of this study say their findings may lead to the development of new therapies aimed at people with disorders of memory control.
研究人员说他们的发现可能会引领记忆控制的精神障碍治疗方法的发展。
Lead author, Roland Benoit of the Medical Research Council (MRC) Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, said:
首席作者是剑桥大学医学研究委员会认知和脑科学部的罗纳德教授。
"This study is the first demonstration of two distinct mechanisms that cause such forgetting: one by shutting down the remembering system, and the other by facilitating the remembering system to occupy awareness with a substitute memory."
这一研究是对两种引起这种遗忘的不同机制的演示：一种是关闭回忆系统，另一个通过促进重组系统来占据意识，代之以其他记忆。
According to prior studies, it is possible for people to deliberately block memories from consciousness. A number of neuroimaging studies have observed which brain systems are involved in deliberate forgetting; however, none have demonstrated which cognitive tactics are used, or what exactly is going on at neural level.
早先的研究表明，人们从意识层抑制记忆是可能的。很多神经研究观察大脑大部分系统参与了这种主动遗忘；然而，用的哪种认知策略，或者神经上发生了什么变化，目前还不清楚。忘掉不想回忆起的记忆的两种方法：
· We can suppress them
• 抑制记忆
· We can substitute them with another memory
• 用另一些记忆替代
How we go about forgetting in those two ways may involve different neural pathways, the authors believe.
研究人员相信这两种遗忘的方法，可能有多种神经通路参与这个过程。
Roland Benoit and Michael Anderson set out to test how we suppress or substitute memories. They used fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) to observe the brain activity of participants who had learned associations between pairs of words, and then tried to forget the memories by either recalling alternative ones to substitute them, or blocking them out.
罗纳德•贝努特和迈克尔•安德森测试我们如何抑制和替代记忆。他们使用磁共振成像技术检测参与人员的大脑活动。这些人之前都学习各组单词的练习，然后尝试通过新的记忆替代，或者抑制的方法忘掉这些记忆。研究人员解释到这两种策略效果一样。但是，激活的神经的通路是不同的。
· Memory suppression- activity in the hippocampus was inhibited by the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. The hippocampus is a region in the brain which is critical for remembering past events.
记忆抑制—当人脑将记忆压制，背侧前额叶皮质层会抑制活化的海马体，而海马体对记忆的保存，起着关键作用。
In a Summary in the same journal, the authors concluded: "These findings suggest that we are not at the mercy of passive forgetting; rather, our memories can be shaped by two opposite mechanisms of mnemonic control."
在同样期刊的一个总结里，作者总结：这些发现表明我们不是被动遗忘的可怜虫，相反，我们会用两种机制重塑记忆。
Benoit said:
贝努特说到：
"A better understanding of these mechanisms and how they break down may ultimately help understanding disorders that are characterized by a deficient regulation of memories, such as posttraumatic stress disorder. Knowing that distinct processes contribute to forgetting may be helpful, because people may naturally be better at one approach or the other."
对于这些机制的更加深入理解，如何分解，这或许能最终帮助我们理解记忆调节缺陷，比如创伤后压力综合症。知道不同的过程导致遗忘可能会有用，因为人们可能天生更擅长其中的一种方法。
In 2004, researchers from the University of Oregon and Stanford University carried out a similar study on how we forget unwanted memories. The volunteers learned pairs of words and were asked to think of, for example, the second word, and were observed using fMRI.
2004年，来自俄勒冈州立大学和斯坦福大学的研究人员从事了一个类似的研究，同样是关于如何忘记不想回忆的记忆。志愿者学习几组单词，然后研究人员让他们回想，比如，第二个单词，整个过程使用磁共振成像技术观察。
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