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Researchers Use Electroconvulsive Therapy To Disrupt Recall of Nasty Events
ananyo writes "In the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, unhappy lovers undergo an experimental brain treatment to erase all memories of each other from their minds. No such fix exists for real-life couples, but researchers report in Nature Neuroscience that a targeted medical intervention helps to reduce specific negative memories in patients who are depressed. The technique, called electroconvulsive (ECT) or electroshock therapy, induces seizures by passing current into the brain through electrode pads placed on the scalp. Despite its sometimes negative reputation, ECT is an effective last-resort treatment for severe depression, and is used today in combination with anaesthesia and muscle relaxants. Marijn Kroes, a neuroscientist at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands, and his colleagues found that by strategically timing ECT bursts, they could target and disrupt patients' memory of a disturbing episode."
The problem is that this therapy tends to erase all memories. It is a very blunt instrument, just slightly better than a lobotomy.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
They just used the ECT to give you a lobotomy.....
I am the unwilling control for my Origin.
Hmmmmm. This reminds me of some movie I once saw. I must have had this performed because I can't recall the name.
I can understand that something like this would be a boon to veterans with PTSD or survivors of rape or other violent episodes. However, I wonder if this will eventually get more widespread and become used for trivial things, like removing memories of a bad breakup or other parts of life which might be painful, but tolerable. It has been noted here and there before that bouts of depression have made people more artistically productive, but this can disappear with medication...if we likewise remove the negative memories, are we going to start missing heuristics that make us work to improve our lives?
hard to resist memories like in the movies. lest we remember then sort as or spirits shock us back into shape. little miss dna cannot be wrong. the king may not be a fink. free the innocent stem cells.
"Researchers Use Electroconvulsive Therapy To Disrupt Recall of Nasty Events"
That therapy is so nasty, that all other nasty events in the past are dimmed in comparison.
Marijn Kroes, a neuroscientist at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands, and his colleagues found that by strategically timing ECT bursts, they could target and disrupt patients' memory of a disturbing episode."
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
Seems rather dangerous to me.
No sir I dont like it.
A similar study showed that ECT was 73.4% effective in removing memories regarding previous health insurance policies .
Was it Men in Black series or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind?
Why not just smack them on the nose with a rolled up newspaper?
"Not only was the ECT ineffective, it was incredibly damaging to my cognitive functioning and memory. But sometimes it's hard to be sure of yourself when everyone 'credible' — scientists, ECT docs, researchers — are telling you that your reality isn't real. How many times have I been told my memory loss wasn't due to ECT but to depression? How many times have I been told that, like a lot of other consumers, I must be perceiving this incorrectly? How many times have people told me that my feelings of trauma related to the ECT are misplaced and unusual? It's as if I was raped and people kept telling me not to be upset—that it wasn't that bad."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroconvulsive_therapy#Individual_negative_accounts
I had a severe clinical depression and was hospitalized for a while. I shared a room with a guy who was undergoing ECT and he was a complete zombie.
To the doctors complete surprise I declined the ECT offer. They didn't quite understand my point, that I was the mad scientist. Not them.
When there is a method that can be used in a much more targeted fashion?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/09/130910140941.htm
In the near future, it could be as simple as take a pill, interview an analyst about your most disturbing memories and be free of them. The trick is not to recall anything you don't want to forget before the pill wears off.
It probably can be used to change people behaviour and even (political) thinking. Just don't use it to make people hate Ludwig van music.
Not a good idea. You need the bad memories. It's called learning, even if they're terrible experiences. And, unless you want treatments forever, one must realize that's it's quite probable that they will simply seep back into your conscious memory over time. Imagine what it would be like ten years later to suddenly realize what you'd gone through - and elected to forget - and hadn't.
... nothing was working to turn her severe depression. Multiple suicide attempts. ECT literally saved her life.
Yes, it had sucky side effects. But she is alive. And a lot happier now.
If would forget the mistakes I made in choosing them as a partner, learn nothing from those mistakes, and end up with someone just as horrible as the last person.
Where they are going, the drums don't stop... :)
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
So rape and PTSD are just learning experiences?
ECT cannot fix the convulsions I experience each time I see the new slashdot interface. nobeta nobeta nobeta
Though the new interface does make me wonder why I still come here. Maybe it also has a role in making people forget?
Product already exists.
OK not really. I knew someone with severe PTSD and after going through electroshock they were much better. They were able to be happy once again. While it may seem barbaric and extreme, think about what kind of extreme pain got them there in the first place.
Target you with ECT like remote brain stimulation over long distances, like an EMP for your brain using Remote Neural Monitoring / Electronic Brain Link? It's true, they have the weapons deployed now to do it, and its usually done for covert attacks against political figures, activists, etc. Its all about torture and experimentation on the public, baby! Oh, and warrantless surveillance, with ability to extract and monitor memories and thought remotely.
Details: http://www.oregonstatehospital.net/d/russelltice-nsarnmebl.html
Fuck 'em.
i need electroshock for your post
I can see how this would work very well for some people. Read Self Comes to Mind for seeing how the physical brain creates a mental mind.
The fundamental basis is pain vs pleasure.
Scientific American had an article a few years ago that therapy was bad for certain groups of people such as children in school shootings. It brought up and reinforced tragedies instead of allowing them to gradually decay in the memory banks. I can see this doing the same thing for people who can't stop remembering things. It's basic brain training.
I know most people don't do that and "think" their brain _is_ them but you can train your brain to think programming or music or architecture. You can also train to avoid pointless memories and useless beliefs--probably the main reason we don't teach people to think about how they think or even teach people to perform critical thinking. (The first thing you _must_ criticize is the teaching itself and few teachers put up with that kind of shit).
Seriously? Zap your brain to forget about a bad romance? Wimps.
01/01/01
This normally happens anyway for most people. People are usually attracted to the same kind of person. The issue usually lies within the self, not with the other.
Her lawyer makes that one very certain.
Why would anyone want this when a proven method (large amount of alcohol)exists?
Get up!
is a direct manipulation of a personalitys base and therefore should be off limits.
In most cases the environment of a victim imposes the bigger problem than the victim itself had.
Not to mention that missing information is as hard-put as remembering it.
It only sounds good at first look.
Having memories or events that cause "depression" is not clinical depression. These people just need psychotherapy and an attitude adjustment, not invasive physical or chemical therapy.
War crime "social control" technology weakly disguised as clinical treatment and research. Early 20th-Century Soviet, Nazis, and general tecno-tyrannies were enamoured of it, too. Part of a fad of "doctors", morally defunct scientists, and psych professors having fun running wires with diverse currents and voltages over exposed brains. To MKUltra and beyond. Dynamite with a microwave beam, as Queen might have sung. But, don't worry. We're all much, much more civilized now. There, there.
Yeah, it probably erases a lot of good memories too. Every few years you see something like this where the supporters of ECT try to come up with new reasons to justify using it.
Memories of bad romances? Hell, that's a good thing. They keep me from making the same damn mistakes I've made in the past.
Proverbs 21:19
That's funny right there, I don't care who you are.
Well, unless you're a government shill with mod points, of course.
Geez, this ain't a partisan issue, people!
The NSA doesn't care if you're Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, gay or straight, or what ethnicity you are.
They violate everyone's 4A rights and more, across the board.
This is truly a case where everyone is a victim, and both sides are to blame equally.
Nothing can erase goatse. I know, because I tried...
C|N>K