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.