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Scientists Erase Specific Memories In Mice
Ostracus writes "It sounds like science fiction, but scientists say it might one day be possible to erase undesirable memories from the brain, selectively and safely. After exposing mice to emotionally powerful stimuli, such as a mild shock to their paws, the scientists then observed how well or poorly the animals subsequently recalled the particular trauma as their brain's expression of CaMKII was manipulated up and down. When the brain was made to overproduce CaMKII at the exact moment the mouse was prodded to retrieve the traumatic memory, the memory wasn't just blocked, it appeared to be fully erased."
How long until ethically underfunded governments decided to "offer relief" from "dangerous memories" to their political detractors? Happy shiny people, indeed.
When do I get my own flashy-little-memory-messer-upper-thing?
[...]erase undesirable memories[...]
undesirable for whom? While this might positively applicaple for e.g. victims of rape there are tons of possible missuses which really should be feared.
being wiped by the cia, the nsa or homeland security, we've got the link to prove it.
ah, i feel vindicated. one of my paranoid thoughts is that people have their memories wiped of certain things they've done, knowing that science has reproduced it in mice means time travelers from the future could easily have been doing it for years now.
well, just as soon as the time machine gets proved to be possible. quantum physics is dangerously close to that with 'particles being everywhere all at once, until observed.' how can a quantum particle like a photon be everywhere all at once, until observed, unless time travel is also possible on the quantum level.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
has the ability to selectively forget anything inconvenient!
Smivs on the intertubes!
Screw that. I want to erase desirable memories from people's brains. Think how easy it would be to make office workers stay later when they can't remember any of the good stuff that happens when they leave the office?
Or for shits and giggles, how about removing all traces of memories of sex for the unwed father of a child? Would make the paternity suit industry tons of coin, I bet.
But enough of the super-villain type stuff.
How abvout erasing the memory of the first time you had warm apple pie? Then, you get to try it for the first time every night.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
All memory of Goatse could be erased! That has to count for SOMETHING.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
ah but that's the thing, i lost about 6 months all told of memory.
the doctor wasn't really up on his paranoid schizophrenia, and he said that the memories were probably repressed. no, no they weren't they were gone completely.
the last time it happened i only lost 3 days, i was on a different medicine then though, and there are some files of what i said and did that are very weird. my explanation for what happened was hackers broke into my computer and used the wifi connection to directly control my thoughts. i don't bring that up to my doctor of course. wifi is everywhere, and hacked computers are a dime a dozen. which lead to my going all hard wired internet with hardened firewalls that are half-open and have specific configurations settings for each pc and each os that connects to the hardened firewalls, and oh i don't run my computers at night.
but the doctor just thinks i am a computer hypochondriac, in addition to being paranoid schizophrenic.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
What with humans being rather complex, mentally, Information may not be stored only once, or it could be fragmented.
The only way to selectively destroy memory would be to track down all instances of it, which I would say is pretty unlikely in the human brain. Same goes for most other primates.
Amnesiacs typically have a non uniform memory loss. Some things they can recall, but not others. Two people with identical brain damage can easily experience different levels of amnesia. Producing a reliable general method for memory deletion is almost certainly impossible.
Short term memory disruption, and the prevention of moving short term memories into long term memory is easier to achieve.
If you want to experience it, dislocate your elbow and go to hospital. They'll give you a nice pill, you'll scream while they manhandle your arm back into position, and five minutes later you won't remember any of it. I've not experienced it, but I've relocated a fair few arms. Its funny when the people wake up and ask when your going to start.
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
Scientist: "Here, mouse, have some cheese."
[Mouse eats cheese]
Scientist: "Right, now forget about it completely."
[Waits 5 minutes]
Scientist: "Say, mouse, how was that oak-smoked camembert with chive and onion?"
Mouse: "Chive?"
Scientist: "Wow, it works."
You do not want a vacation on mars. You want to stay here and keep doing Sharon Stone.
So soon we will have truly enforceable NDA's.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
...its the Haitian
Use your head, can't you, use your head,
You're on earth, there's no cure for that - S. Beckett
... I call it Glenfiddich
Use your head, can't you, use your head,
You're on earth, there's no cure for that - S. Beckett
I can already erase memories. It's called whiskey.
----
Squirrel
"Imagine if they got this stuff working for humans. They could really erase a criminals memory of an event and all the stuff that makes him bad."
you assume that criminal activity isn't caused by how the brain is wired, or how their genetic code is coded, and which codes are active, and which are repressed.
but yeah, you could reduce a criminal to a drooling idiot, the problem is he'll eventually relearn how to be a criminal, and there are going to be people saying no you can't do this to criminals. albeit in a world where a forget me pill exists some of those problems can go away by themselves, at least if information is tightly controlled.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
Maybe I am just grouchy but...
Even for traumatic memories, I would choose healing and closure over forgetfulness anytime. I may like it or not, but I am the sum of all the things I experienced, and I am not looking forward to self-amputation.
On the other hand, I understand that achieving healing and closure is a very inefficient process - just being able to erase unpleasant experiences would probably set us free to pursue more worthy achievements, like making the current global economic breakdown ever worse...
Again, sorry for ranting.
In the long run we are all dead. - John Maynard Keynes (1883 - 1946)
Brewers have been doing this for centuries.
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
This would be a waste on me. I couldn't remember anything for them to trace what to erase anyhow.
Heck, I can't even remember my login.
Just sayin. Clementine was farking hot.
It will be interesting, to one day see if removal of a traumatic memory can help with psychological issues that may stem from it.
For example, can erasing war-time memories lessen PTSD, and to what extent? Or would said person simply exhibit the same symptoms and have no idea why?
I think this is how all the dupes get into the front page.
Call it nature, call it whatever, but there exists already a mechanism that erases memories selectively, or moves them to the sub-conscience. Many times, things that we've seemingly forgotten resurface after many years. Painful as well as happy memories diminish over time. Isn't this a mechanism that is in place already? Who is to say that the individual can select better what he/she needs to remember or needs to forget? Most people would screw themselves up if given such a power. We don't understand the mind, psyche enough, leave alone sub-conscience and such.
Life is about being a Phoenix!
You are the scariest person I've ever encountered on Slashdot, that is an achievement beyond all other achievements.
After reading your posts I see why people would want the option to have traumatic memories erased.
There are many memories that I would like to erase but I would like to also retain my memory of what it is I don't want to look at. What's the use of eradicating the distended anus from my mind if I go and innocently follow a goatse.cx link again? I'd rather it be like 2 girls 1 cup, I found out what that was before I ever clicked on it, thank Cthulhu.
Maybe we could implant a post-hypnotic warning in our brains, like when Gandalf tried to touch the One Ring and got the warning flash of evil in his brain? So if I mouse over to a link leading to 4chan I'll feel a cloud of evil pass over my mind and know not to click.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Not to quote Star Trek too much, but painful memories are just as important as happy ones. They help shape who we are, and removing those painful memories, probably diminish the happy ones we do have. "The sweet is never as sweet without the sour." We're slowly becoming a society that simply wants to take the easy way out. It just doesn't work that way. There are always consequences to our actions, 100% of the time.
Mind control and induced memory loss was part of a (now famous) CIA project apparently involving dozens of universities, called Project MK-ULTRA. See also William Sargant and Donald Cameron.
Slashcomma,org is actually a great site with well-written summaries, intelligent comments, and working CSS. Heaven knows how I mixed it up with this site.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Did they attempt to see if it still worked if the mice were wearing sunglasses?
Ok, we joke about it, recall (!?) "Total recall" or "Men in black"... but if this is or becomes truly possible for humans it would be unimaginably dangerous and frightening. Our memory IS us, much more than a foot, a leg or an eye. Removing it is indeed "crippling" in the worst way imaginable, and it is no consolation that the victim might not be aware after the deed of what happened. It is indeed abstractly equivalent to no less than murder.
The full journal article is available free from Neuron right now via ScienceDirect, for those who prefer to read what the study actually says versus what the popsci reporter decided to interpret it as.
"I defy the second law of thermodynamics."
"The hell you do. Get back in the box."
Perhaps that's why we are conditioned to view people with shifty eyes with mistrust. Perhaps they are self medicating their psyche after being involved with (or having done) things that they'd rather forget and humans evolved a way to detect this.
They did not erase anything. They PREVENTED.
What they prevented was an association of the memory for the event and the "trauma", which is pain. They tested for reactions associated with the pain. Some say there is no memory for pain, only for painful events. I disagree in that some people retain some memory of pain, and a few retain it well, while most retain memory of the event and have an association to an implicit (non-conscious) memory of pain. They managed to prevent more so what often doesn't happen anyway.
The only thing they *could* have tested was association to the pain. To test for the memory of the event they'd have had to ask the mice what they recalled. I'm pretty sure they didn't. Doing so would imply they expected the mice to answer.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
I used to be into BMX bike riding, I stress "used to". Anyway, one day at the track I was riding, went off a jump, lost control and came down on my face. I was wearing a helmet but NOT a full face helmet.
Anyway, I lost that day almost completely from my memory banks. I can't remember going to work or being in a bad mood there (apparently I was exceptionally grouchy... serves me right) I can't remember going to the track and most disturbing to me, I cannot remember the jump I did or what exactly went wrong. Some kids said they saw me and told my friend about it. They said when I went off the jump I lost my balance mid-air and started coming down wrong. I landed on my face and put my two front teeth through my upper lip, knocked myself out cold and actually wet myself (pissed my pants).
My girlfriend at the time came to the track and took me to the hospital where I got stitched up. So that day was like I said, almost completely wiped from my memory. Oh and incidentally, when asked at the ER what year it was, I was convinced it was 2002 when in fact it was 2003.
Anyway, just my antectodal story, and after that I rode again but my wheels were shot and I lost all courage to try and do jumps, etc. I still ride but it's *chill style* and the most I'll do is jump little curb cuts. What irritates me most about it is NOT remembering what exactly went wrong. Yes those kids telling my friend helped but losing my balance mid-air? Just never happened to me up till that point so it never sat well with my mind. Usually when you bail, you KNOW what you did or were doing wrong (in this activity anyway) but since I couldn't remember it I was never the same on the bike thereafter.
well you're lucky you caught me on an all nighter. usually my paranoid thoughts aren't on topic, so i go anonymous with them. and when i don't take my meds to stay up all night the paranoia flows easier and i'm more likely to post with this account. this morning i happened to be on topic and on an all nighter.
my blog explains why i was up all night. debugging kubuntu which is my primary net use OS.
windows is only for a games, and only when i don't have money to rent console games and have a decent console system.
although i'm +5 funny i seriously at times believe what i've posted and worse, it really depends how much weird shit has happened. you know, like the stock market plunging 5% but only on days i'm mad, and in a place where i've set up the computers on their security, while my home systems are turned off...
or like me making a mistake on my food stamps, despite the fact i keep every single receipt. i mean who expects their food stamps to suddenly arrive on the 27th of the previous month? when they normally go on the 14th? that's a big enough gap for a human to make the mistake, and think they have too much money. and waste their money on say coke products.
this actually happened to me, and the day i realized it had happened to me the stock market fell 500 points. i mean i know stuff about computers, a lot, but i don't do anything with that knowledge. working on computers gets really hard for me, especially debugging, but the ideas, some days they flow a mile a minute of what the capabilities of computers are.
if the world was just a model and there were lots of people like myself and you could say get them to post their ideas in a blog posted on the internet, and spot a gem from a mile a way... i mean administration would prevent you from reading memory just like on unix you cant' read someone else's memory... but what about dreams? would the system prevent you from dreaming someone elses dream? would the system stop you from posting information through a computer to a blog? would the system reward you with golden ideas and punish you with bad ones? these are questions i worry about when i'm not reading up on tech, news, politics(as long as it's not ads) the environment, or playing video games etc...
just so you know, i don't dream either. not usually i mean my mind does stuff when i sleep, but whatever it does, for all i know some famous writer or painter is getting the read and store dream my mind is working on.... because i've always had a problem writing stories and being creative on my own. but i still try once in a while, but i crave variety. i get bored thinking of the same things, except for a crack like addictions to real time strategy. i don't like to brag, but i'm level 25 on battle.net and know ever unit and every race, and i'm starting to know which units are really imbalanced and which are super weak... i still suck at figuring out what the other team is doing, but i'm pretty spot on on detecting bsers and i'm fairly good at telling when my team are rush/tech alternators with no communication skills (thus reducing the chances of winning my over 50%) btw i was a rush tech alternator for like 6 months before i learned real skill, but real skill gets weaker when you take a break from it, and i took a less stressful approach to gaming on battle.net the playing the odds, game, trying to figure out the odds of winning and which loser strat or which winning strat to play. if you do it right, the matching code makes your wins easier to predict, and thus less stress is there in games where careful strategy is required. close games drive a lot of gamers, i know it, but i have to calm down after a tight game where i had to adapt my units to theirs all game.
no karma bonus because this is really tangential.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html