Drug Selectively Removes Rats' Memory

rednuhter writes "Nature online is reporting scientists have used drugs to selectively remove one memory while not affecting another. Musical tones were played to the rats and at the same time the subjects were given a mild electric shock. Half the study group were given the drug (not approved for use in humans) and then the experiment was repeated with a new tone. The following day the rats that had not been given the treatment were afraid of both tones while the treated half were only afraid of the second tone: the memory of fear of the first had been erased."

Comments

Deja vu

[iamspews]

Sounds like an old Orson Scott Card story - scientist testing a drug on rats finds it wipes memory. Using that they determine how memory is stored and manage to record it. Now they can upload a rat mind into a different rat. Hey, let's see if that works for people! A little bit later cloning becomes easy, and now it's a torture tool - if we record his memory while we kill him and then upload into a new body, did he really die?

The drug did not erase a memory

[xutopia]

It simply stopped it from going into long term memory.

I can think of more to say than "Oh No".

[NRAdude]

"Drug" is defined by the FDA as "any substance advertised to cure a disease."

Don't you think it's about time they were returned to a more productive task than the one they are experimenting on now, and especially to not be so cruel to the little creatures? Men are much more reasonable test tubjects than are animals, that's why a Veterinarian trains for twice the length of time at a university because animals require better interpretation on their symptoms while men can talk about the pain all they want.

This alleged "drug" stinks of influence of a continuing project of the CIA, no different than the experiments of LSD continued to the poor generics in the medical industry. None would volunteer for LSD if they actually knew what it was intended to accomplish at the time. Why is it any different now? It isn't morality to decide what is good or bad research; it is respectful that such physical experimentation is not done when the outcome is well known. Besides, looking to PRISONPLANET.COM, it looks like "drugs" as this have been an experiment on Prisoners of War held at Guantanamo Bay facilities of the U.S. Navy/Army as well as the numerous detention centers and prison compounds of the US Navy/Army built on Iraq soil to seize and experiment on harmless and non-accused "suspects" with no evidence.

And yet here we are, speaking more respectively of the rats while men (male and female, children or grown) are stolen from the streets by military for tests and then pumped and dumped like a penny-stock.