The order of behavioral and drug interventions can change an experimental memory result.
Rats learned a strong conditioned fear memory. Midazolam reduced later freezing when extinction and renewal preceded administration, but not under the other tested sequencing conditions. Reversing parts of the sequence did not produce the same effect.
Conditioned freezing is not a direct measure of human autobiographical memory or an ability to recall a legal event. Reduced expression also needs to be distinguished from complete erasure of a memory.
State the training and reactivation history before citing a drug-memory effect. The experiment cannot show that a benzodiazepine reliably deletes a person’s established memory. Forensic assessment still requires the actual exposure, timing, interviews and competing causes of impaired recall.
Source: PMC8393283, supplied full-text paper. Findings are paraphrased; forensic implications are an interpretation.
Related: Midazolam Did Not Disrupt Reactivated Fear Memory in Ethanol-Withdrawn Rats.