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Drug Deletes Fearful Memories
Al writes "Technology Review has an article about a common drug that seems to 'delete' painful memories related to a fearful experience. Experiments carried out by neuro-scientists at Emory University show that propranolol, a drug commonly used to treat high blood pressure, can suppress the emotional part of a fearful memory. The results, published in Nature Neuroscience, suggest a new way to treat anxiety disorders. In recent years, scientists have discovered that the simple act of remembering a past experience requires that the memory be consolidated once again. And both animal research and some human studies have shown that during re consolidation, long-term memories — once thought to be fairly stable — can be more easily meddled with."
You know one does learn to avoid making many mistakes in life--I really cant fly, fire is pretty but it does hurt--by pain.
Besides just the idea of tampering with memory being a *bad* thing, the notion of fooling with one of the fundamental ways we learn strikes me as a really bad idea.
Soma anyone?
Steven
The headline is somewhat misleading. The memory is not erased. Rather, the emotions associated it are dampened. As in, "I saw my mother hacked to pieces with a chainsaw. Meh."
I don't believe in time. It's a grand conspiracy designed to sell watches.
Actually, you can teach yourself to forget once you develop a certain level of introspection.
The key is in realizing that trying not to think about X will, in fact, cause you to think about X by reference. Combine that with the fact that one memory will trigger related memories (as if they were all connected by URLs or pointers or what have you... yes, I am a software geek) and you may start to see the solution.
First, you need a 'null thought' to overwrite the bad memory with. This should be a thought that references only itself. A software diagram that showed a memory scheme where address 0 was filled with 0x00 so that it acted as a null pointer that pointed to itself was what gave me that idea. It's not unlike the sink state of a state machine.
You might worry that it will develop links to the outside as you use it as a replacement. This is a reasonable worry, but solved via use. Most people can't remember how many times they've, say, breathed, because the memories are indistinct. There are simply too many of them. Forget enough and the null memory will be the same.
After that, you need the introspection to know when you're about to think about the thought you want to replace, at which time you divert to the null thought. It won't quite work at first. But over time, the memory will lose power by virtue of not having been thought of as much. The further ingrained into your mind the memory is, the harder it will be to forget. If you erase it right away, it may die on the spot. If this is the most painful moment of your life that you've lived with for decades... you might not be able to fully get rid of it, but you may be able to think about it a lot less.
Be smart about what you erase. Sometimes painful memories are a part of us. You don't have to erase everything. Just find a level you can live with and stay there. It's hard sometimes. And not every bad memory should be erased. Sometimes, you're better talking them out with someone you trust. Sharing your pain is another way to lessen it. That's a lot better than having some weird drug mess with your mind. And that goes double for illegal drugs.
The drug in the study is a beta blocker. They are used heavily to treat high blood pressure, heart rhythm issues, and specific aspects of heart failure. The study indicates that they MAY be useful in helping to dampen the negative feelings associated with traumatic memories when combined with specifically designed therapy. There's no claim that they can actually cause a memory to be forgotten. It's not a potential lifestyle drug poised for widespread abuse. Most links I've seen to this article and others covering the study seem to suggest that simply popping one of these pills will make you forget an entire event at will. It's nowhere near that simple. If it were, I'd be a lot more laid-back than I actually am.
And they said some things couldn't be unseen.
or marriage ;-P
Table-ized A.I.
On that note - as you point out, it only works when you're on it. Does that emotion-suppression while you're taking the drug allow a better success rate of more normal therapies, so it is possible to stop taking it and not undo the therapy? Or should I RTFA?
/~Rockwolf
February 9th, 2009 8:55pm: Slashdot becomes self-aware.