The Spotless Mind: The Possibilities of Memory-Erasing

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A traumatic memory has the means of replaying itself over and again with such tenacity that it’s almost as if it were on a constant loop. It has the alarming capability of magnifying the most horrific aspects and can run through the minds of its victims with such frequency that many report feeling as if they’re a prisoner of their own mind.

The act of remembering has left them looking for a key to a door that will not stay closed. More than 5 million people in the United States alone suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and they live in constant fear of their own memories. But what if the emotional response to that memory could be erased?

Or, better yet, the memory itself?

Neuroscientists have revolutionized a concept that was once considered not only impossible but borderline science fiction (and featured famously as the theme of the film, “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” and in the book trilogy, “The Hunger Games”). Precision memory-erasing is something that we will possibly see in the next decade. Imagine the possibility of being able to administer a pill and live again.

Dr. Karem Nader, a professor of psychology and neuroscientist at McGill University in Montreal, has been testing and treating patients who suffer from PTSD. “For 100 years, people used to think that once a memory is consolidated it stayed that way, that when you were remembering something it was like you read it off of the hardware in the brain,” he says. “In functionally erasing memories, I rediscovered a property of memory. When you are remembering something, it goes from a stable state to an unstable state, and it has to be re-stabilized. If you block the process of re-stabilization, you seem to get rid of the memory. This is called reconsolidation.”

Using research dating back to the 1960s, in 2000, Nader figured out how to successfully erase an already formed memory. Although some of his studies are still in trial stages, he says it is possible to administer a beta blocker to a patient, and lessen — or even erase — the emotional impact of that person’s memory.

“When you have them recall their trauma, the memory goes to an unstable state,” he says. “The beta blocker is something we use to block the consolidation of the emotional part of the memory being restored, while preserving the conscious part. We are erasing the emotional memory. Patients have improved tremendously in their condition but they can still tell you what happened.”

A study by Dr. Alain Brunet tested propranolol, a beta blocker which was originally used for treating heart conditions, for long-term sufferers of PTSD. The study had patients recall their traumatic memory while receiving a dose of the propranolol. A week later, when they were asked to recall their fearful events, the patients who received the beta blocker reported having far less emotional response then a week prior.

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