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Researchers Design Memory-Strengthening Implant
Antipater writes "Researchers at Wake Forest University have created a brain implant that can imitate signals through the hippocampus, the part of the brain responsible for memory retention. Rats implanted with the device were able to remember information even after their hippocampus was shut down, reports the New York Times. Though still in its infancy, this technology could hopefully be used to help treat dementia or stroke victims."
Memory is good to have, and it'd be fun to remember all sorts of things instead of having to look them up, but with Internet shock pictures, I want an option to delete stuff from memory too.
Also, is it possible to transplant this device from one rat to another, and give it fake memories? Maybe the way to see is let a rat solve a maze several times over, and then hook it up to another mouse and let it go. If that is the case, put WIFI on it, and let Rats have a communal memory bank too.
God spoke to me
PTSD is more about being unable to leave the memories, pretty much anything you spend that much time thinking about is going to stick. If you repeated think about a specific page out of the phonebook over and over and over again all day long, you'll store that information indefinitely. It's not likely to be of any use, but if you concentrate on in long enough for enough iterations that will be with you permanently.
It's probably more closely related to the problems of schizophrenia, one of the hypothesis surrounding it is that it's caused by hyperlearning and an eidetic memory. I'm not sure ultimately what the verdict will be when all is said and done, but if you look at the symptoms, it wouldn't be surprising. Folks that are overwhelmed by information overload tend to have trouble sorting and assembling information in meaningful ways.