What if you could erase some of your worst memories – you know the stuff that makes you cringe when it pops up in your head.
Researchers at the SUNY Downstate Medical Center, in Brooklyn, NY might be able to help you out with a dose of a drug that effects areas of the brain that retain memory.
Dr. Todd C. Sacktor, a neuroscientist who heads the research team, believes this could be a useful drug for treating trauma, addiction, fear, and other behaviors. Maybe it could even break a bad habit or two.
Basically the drug blocks the activity of a substance that the brain needs to retain information.
While this is significant, the bigger issue, which is raised in a recent New York Times article by Benedict Carey: how can our brains capture and retain so much, from the most important, life altering information to the utterly mundane?
This is explained by the term engram, which is the hypothetical means by which memories are stored as biochemical change in response to external stimuli. And memories are not stored in one place but throughout the cortex.
How does it work?
It’s likely that a large network of brain cells is at work creating and retaining memories. When activated by an experience, each cell adds some detail, like sight, sound and smell to create or recall the memory. Memories are retained because the lines of communications between these cells grow stronger and thicker.
Dr. Sacktor’s lab found that a molecule called PKMzeta was present and activated in cells precisely when one cell stimulated another while creating these lines of communications.
Once they isolated the molecule, they experimented with a drug called ZIP that interferes with PKMzeta. Using mice that had learned to avoid electric shocks, the injection of ZIP caused the mice to completely forget how to avoid the shocks.
Since that first experiment they have been working with a consortium of researchers to recreate the results using a number of different methods, achieving similar results.
Of course this needs a little more refinement.
It’s too early in the research process to predict that neurologists will develop a tool to selectively erase memories.
It would be tempting to erase all the painful memories of the past. Of course there’s the possible downside of forgetting really important personal memories, even if they are painful.
And sometimes painful memories act as reminders of bad behavior which can help you maintain your moral conscience.
I don’t know if I’m willing to shed all my bad memories but I’d sure hate to lose the good ones.
By the way, how is your memory? We’ve got lots of casual games at our website – Brain Games Software – where you can give it a workout.
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Interesting article. I don’t know about more drugs though. What if something goes wrong and your good memories are erased as well as the bad. What if all the bad memories are erased but sometimes it’s beneficial to remember something bad so it will stop you from experiencing it again. Posit Science are talking about developing brain software that can retrain your brain to atrophy neural pathways that contain bad habits and memories. I know this is sort of the same thing but somehow sounds more holistic to me than using drugs.
[...] Delete bad memories from your brain? Cool. « Stuff Your Brain Likes – I don’t know if I’m willing to shed all my bad memories but I’d sure hate to lose the good ones. By the way, how is your memory? We’ve got lots of casual games at our website – Brain Games Software – where you can give it a workout. … [...]
There is, in my opinion, a better way to delete memories without the use of drugs. I delete memories all the time in my practice. Here’s a link to my most recent blog post teaching you how to do it….
http://www.healyourhome.org/blog/delete-unwanted-images-mind/