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Another Way To Erase Memories
amigoro writes "Neuroscientists have discovered that long-term memories are not etched in a stable form, like a 'clay tablet,' as once thought. The process is much more dynamic, involving a miniature molecular machine that must run constantly to keep memories going. Jamming the machine briefly can erase long-term memories." A few months back we discussed a similar removal of rat memories by a different method.
I can verify this from personal experience. When I was a teenager I had a bad drug experience that messed up my thought processes. I had a panic reaction that fed itself; a fear of being afraid. Because the fear was of fear itself, I found myself unable to control it because the moment I believed I might be starting to panic, panic immediately ensued because I was panicking about panicking. It sounds weird I know but it was a feedback loop of fear and panic that was very difficult to control. People talk about "panic attacks" and I am not sure if this is the same thing, but I can tell you that it was a really awful thing to go through. I can say without hesitation that it was the worst feeling I have ever had in my life; in fact I believe that it is the worst feeling I am capable of feeling, because my entire mental faculty was devoted to feeling panic. There was nothing else. I told myself that if I couldn't get over it, I would kill myself because it would be better to be dead. And I believe I would have carried through on that. But luckily the young mind (I was 15) is pretty malleable and I was able to figure a way out of it.
Because these panic attacks happened only once every couple of days, I focused on the time between the attacks. The attacks were precipitated by a fear that they were going to happen, so if I got myself into the wrong frame of mind, and allowed myself to start to panic (a sort of aura would come over my mind as the panic started, like I could feel it descending on me), and if I didn't act quickly to distract myself, there was no hope of getting out of it. So I decided to stop fighting it and just "let it happen", sort of convincing myself that "I survived the last one so I can survive this one". And it helped immensely to realize that even if it did keep happening, it wouldn't kill me (unless I killed myself!), and I would have a couple of days to live relatively normally again. I focused on feeling like it didn't matter that I would panic, like it was something to just get over with and move back on with normal life, and once I was able to convince myself of that, I had a tool to take the edge off of the panic once it started happening. And that was enough to often times prevent the panic attack entirely. And once I could prevent a panic attack once in a while, I gained confidence because I thought "well not only do these panic attacks not matter, they are actually preventable". And once I started gaining that confidence, it became easier and easier to avoid them.
Just as the feedback loop of fear was causing the panic attacks, a feedback loop of confidence (where the confidence caused more confidence because the confidence itself was the tool for preventing the panic attacks) was the solution. Eventually I stopped having the attacks. I did relapse a couple of times throughout my teen years, but only briefly. I also had some months-long duration of minor depression, which I attribute to my brain having to devote so many "feel good" neurons to preventing the attacks, and having less left over to keep my general happiness at a normal level. But by the time I went to college, I was for all intents and purposes over it completely.
I am 35 now and haven't had a panic attack in 10 years or so. Although it does make me a little nervous to talk about in depth, even writing this felt a little like skirting the edge of fear. But I have no doubt that once I move onto the next Slashdot article I will have relaxed my nerves entirely.