New Drug Deletes Bad Memories
Bill Christensen, Technovelgy.com

LiveScience.com
Mon Jul 2, 11:55 PM ET



Do you have a really bad memory, or past heartache, that you would
prefer to forget?

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Researchers at Harvard and McGill University (in Montreal) are
working on an amnesia drug that blocks or deletes bad memories. The
technique seems to allow psychiatrists to disrupt the biochemical
pathways that allow a memory to be recalled.


In a new study, published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research, the
drug propranolol is used along with therapy to "dampen" memories of
trauma victims. They treated 19 accident or rape victims for ten
days, during which the patients were asked to describe their memories
of the traumatic event that had happened 10 years earlier. Some
patients were given the drug, which is also used to treat amnesia,
while others were given a placebo.


A week later, they found that patients given the drug showed fewer
signs of stress when recalling their trauma.


Similar research led by Professor Joseph LeDoux has been carried out
at New York University on rats; scientists were able to remove a
specific memory from the brains of rats while leaving the rest of the
animals' memories intact. An amnesia drug called U0126 was
administered.


The rats were trained to associate two musical tones with a mild
electrical shock so that when they heard either of the tones they
would brace themselves for a shock. The researchers then gave half
the rats the drug when playing one of the musical tones.


After the treatment, the rats that had been given the drug no longer
associated that particular tone with an imminent shock but still
braced themselves upon hearing the second tone, demonstrating only
one memory had been deleted.


Science fiction fans have a number of associations with the idea of
banishing unwanted memories. In the 2004 film Eternal Sunshine of the
Spotless Mind, Kate Winslet and Jim Carrey play lovers who have a
falling out. Winslet's character goes to a company called Lacuna,
Inc. to have her memories of the relationship removed; Carrey's
character also has the procedure performed (see photo).


In the film, the process involves showing the person a memento of the
relationship and then encouraging them to bring up specific memories
while an electric shock is given. Not to give away the film, but this
technique does not work as planned.


Here's a memory you might have repressed. In the classic Star Trek
episode Requiem for Methuselah, Jim Kirk becomes enamored of Rayna, a
beautiful woman who turns out to be an android created by a five
thousand year old man who calls himself Flint, who was also Leonardo
DaVinci and Shakespeare (among many others) during the course of his
long life. Flint wants Rayna for himself, Kirk wants her, she loves
them both, her circuits overload resulting in her death, and Kirk is
devastated.


Finally, Spock saves the day by applying a little-known property of
the Vulcan mind-meld, which is that he can make Kirk forget about his
sorrows and return to duty (see touching photo).


Science fiction legend Philip K. Dick was one of the first to make
use of this idea. In his 1966 short story We Can Remember It For You
Wholesale he writes about selectively erasing memories:


Someone, probably at a government military-sciences lab, erased his
conscious memories; all he know was that going to Mars meant
something special to him, and so did being a secret agent...

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etesbadmemories