Memories Can Be Erased

[Splintered]

Saw this on Slashdot
Link: http://pressesc.com/news/1088/160820...cientists-find

Memories can be erased, scientists find
Submitted by Vidura Panditaratne on Fri, 2007-08-17 02:37.

Neuroscientists have discovered that long-term memories are not etched in a "clay tablet"-like stable form as once thought. The process is much more dynamic, involving a miniature molecular machine that must run constantly to keep memories going, and jamming this machine briefly can erase long-term memories.

The findings by Prof. Yadin Dudai, Head of the Weizmann Institute’s Neurobiology Department, which appeared today in the journal Science, may pave way for memory altering drugs in the future.

Dudai and his team trained rats to avoid certain tastes and then injected a drug to block a specific protein into the taste cortex – an area of the brain associated with taste memory.

They hypothesized, that this protein, an enzyme located in the synapses called PKMzeta, acts as a miniature memory “machine” that keeps memory up and running by changing some facets of the structure of synaptic contacts.

But it must be persistently active to maintain this change, which is brought about by learning.

Silencing PKMzeta, reasoned the scientists, should reverse the change in the synapse.

They proved their hypothesis by showing that regardless of the taste the rats were trained to avoid, they forget their learned aversion after a single application of the drug.

The technique worked as successfully a month after the memories were formed, which is analogous to years in humans, and all signs so far indicate that the affected unpleasant memories of the taste had indeed disappeared.

This is the first time that memories in the brain were shown to be capable of erasure so long after their formation.

“This drug is a molecular version of jamming the operation of the machine,” says Dudai. “When the machine stops, the memories stop as well.”

In other words, long-term memory is not a one-time inscription on the nerve network, but an ongoing process which the brain must continuously fuel and maintain and these findings raise the possibility of developing a "memory eraser".

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 License. Attribution: Pressesc.com

[kwaniesiam]

I don't know why but something about the whole idea of that really bothers me...

[Amarantha]

Memory is something that shouldn't be fucked with.



Ever.

[BLEED REBELION!!!]

Fucking morons never know when to stop... god damn

[Godslayer Jillian]

Actually, long term memory fucks up our minds, so I don't see what's so upsetting to you.
All those drugs that help you be better at school, like that thing they give ADHD kids that some people use in college, messes with our way to store information.
It stores that information and doesn't let it go.
Forgetting is a normal and healthy part of the human psyche. Our personalities would be a lot different if we remembered everything we experience.

So no arbitrary commandments nor unbased insulting, please, until you can back up your statements.

[Splintered]

I don't think the main argument comes from the actual 'forgetting' part of the equation.

I think it comes more from the unnatural aspect of it. The ability to 'force' yourself to forget.

Then again, I could be wrong.

[Edward]

I wonder how philip K dick would take this... (drifts off into daydream)

[BLEED REBELION!!!]

I dont like it cuz this could be used on people without their consent by force..

[Minyaliel]

Yes, I'm uneasy at the thought as well, and one reason being just that one, Bleed. I mean, I sure do have a lot of memories I'd like to forget (most of my childhood and teenage years, in fact), but then again they've made me what and whom I am, so it'd be just wrong to take a pill or whatever and *poof* it never happened...

[dark_dragon_of_ice]

Originally Posted by BLEED REBELION!!!

I dont like it cuz this could be used on people without their consent by force..

Yes but that is no reason to attack the scientists finding out these things..they are just working out how the mind works for the quest of knowledge...And besides this research could help in the development of cure for some conditions.

[KontanKarite]

This could help people get over things such as phobias and certain mental conditions like PTSD, IF this technology was refined and more accurate.

[NachtSorcier]

I don't approve but I won't tell people what they can or can't do with their own bodies.

[Godslayer Jillian]

Hell, I really don't see anything wrong with this.
What scenario in which we forcefully making someone forget is worse than any other method we could use on that scenario?
For example, it's much better to make a criminal forget all that led to his crime, than to sentence him to prison or even death.

[Lapin]

Originally Posted by KontanKarite

This could help people get over things such as phobias and certain mental conditions like PTSD, IF this technology was refined and more accurate.

I think that is the specific purpose of it. I remember them working on another branch of this, one that helps lessen the pain of PTSD. They tested it on **** victims in the documentary I saw.

The subjects remembered the event, but the pain and horror had been removed. They were able to move on.

[thedoll]

isnt a natural way of forgetting better in those circumstances, and forcing yourself to forget more damaging in the long run? I understand that other drugs fuck with your memory as well, and I think it is all not necessary.

[Lapin]

How is it more damaging in the long run? Do you have the slightest idea how horrible some memories can be?

[Apathy's_Child]

Originally Posted by thedoll

isnt a natural way of forgetting better in those circumstances, and forcing yourself to forget more damaging in the long run? I understand that other drugs fuck with your memory as well, and I think it is all not necessary.

Depends. Supposedly repression is not healthy, the Freudian perspective would have it, because the memories are still there in your unconscious and cause problems such as neurotic disorders, nightmares et cetera. Forgetting completely is different, it's not there at all anymore and could be used to remove the root cause of any mental problems caused as a result of a particular event.

[Lapin]

And Freud turned out to be wrong about a lot, according to my psychology book.

[Apathy's_Child]

There are flaws in every theory. But as far as the idea of the unconscious, it's very difficult to test by its very nature. As far as I know no-one's totally clear on that.

[Lapin]

Hell, I wasn't clear on a lot in that class. Gave me a migraine. I went back to Art History in the second semester.

[Apathy's_Child]

LOL. I enjoyed it, although I do think he was a mad bastard. Must have been all the coke.

[Lapin]

I enjoyed the theories. I did not enjoy all the science involved. I was always absolute rubbish with science.

[the-broken-harlequin]

i haz theory
ppl digivolved from monkey

[Lapin]

Aw, how cute. Harley is theorizing. Just adorable. Would you like a cookie Harley?

[the-broken-harlequin]

Originally Posted by Lapin

Aw, how cute. Harley is theorizing. Just adorable. Would you like a cookie Harley?

Bleh I hate cookies.
Give me tea and british biscuits!