According to this new study, oral contraceptives may affect the way women recall emotional stories. Apparently, women on the pill recall more "gist" items from emotional stories than neutral stories, compared to women not on the pill who better recall the details of emotional stories than neutral stories. If the research is confirmed, it likely makes birth control pills the most commonly prescribed memory-manipulating pharmaceutical (though, of course, they're not prescribed for that purpose).
(It's interesting because a monthly regimen of birth control pills typically also contains the most commonly prescribed placebo: many birth control regimens include reminder pills that have no "specific effects." I have argued that these pills are technically placebos under the American Medical Association's definition, see pages 121-22.)
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