Wipe out a single memory - news

[Finch]

New finding in neurophysiology - http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070305/full/070305-17.html

"A single, specific memory has been wiped from the brains of rats, leaving other recollections intact."

Ok i know this is very premature speculation- but if they can find a drug that is safe and has a similar effect, think of it. Now that we know it can be done... who knows?
Prehaps a new weapon to combat trauma or help therapists.
Of for the conspirests out there, the knowledge that the government has the potential to wipe a memory clean. Possible? Probably not. But look for it to be mentioned by conspirests some time soon! You have been warned… lol

To find out, they trained rats to fear two different musical tones, by playing them at the same time as giving the rats an electric shock. Then, they gave half the rats a drug known to cause limited amnesia (U0126, which is not approved for use in people), and reminded all the animals, half of which were still under the influence of the drug, of one of their fearful memories by replaying just one of the tones.

When they tested the rats with both tones a day later, untreated animals were still fearful of both sounds, as if they expected a shock. But those treated with the drug were no longer afraid of the tone they had been reminded of under treatment. The process of re-arousing the rats' memory of being shocked with the one tone while they were drugged had wiped out that memory completely, while leaving their memory of the second tone intact.



LeDoux's team also confirms the idea that a part of the brain called the amygdala is central to this process - communication between neurons in this part of the brain usually increases when a fearful memory forms, but it decreases in the treated rats. This shows that the fearful memory is actually deleted, rather than simply breaking the link between the memory and a fearful response.

 

[xvart]

How did they target the specific memory of the tone? Was it what they heard while the drug was in their system or did it just wipe away a small amount of time prior to the drug usage?

Very interesting none-the-less.

xvart.

 

[Finch]

How did they target the specific memory of the tone? Was it what they heard while the drug was in their system or did it just wipe away a small amount of time prior to the drug usage?

The entire study is very likely to be published in the Journal Nature shortly, as that is the publication's online news site. The library has a subscription, i will have to look and will post more details if i find them.

From what i have interperted from the news article,Im tentative to say it seems it wipes out a period of time prior to the drug usage...

 

[Clint]

I wouldn't do it. No regrets, that's my motto.

Well.... Only if I could forget the Tony Danza show.... I think we'd all rather forget that tradgedy.

 

[xvart]

I don't think I would remove anything from my memory. I agree, no regrets; however, there are some times that I wish I could erase a couple stupid things I said when I was in high school because some things never get dropped, and you really look like a fool for speaking such gibberish after a little more development. Of course, I suppose my friends would still remember and still give me a hard time so maybe I wouldn't erase it after all.

I wouldn't do it. No regrets, that's my motto.

Well.... Only if I could forget the Tony Danza show.... I think we'd all rather forget that tradgedy.

Haha! I always loved how they would rail on him on E!'s "The Soup." Hilarious.

xvart.

 

[seedjar]

It says there in the article that it was the activation of the memory while under the influence of the drug that supposedly reset the memory. 'Wiping' the memory seems kind of imprecise at this point; it seems more like this drug allowed them to overwrite the old bad memory with a neutral one.
~Joe

 

[Finch]

seedjar read again

This shows that the fearful memory is actually deleted, rather than simply breaking the link between the memory and a fearful response.

Deleted=wiped. there is nothing that says the thing was replaced by some new neutral memory.

 

[seedjar]

That is what it says, but you're also quoting secondary literature. The brain isn't a hard drive - deleted is really a misnomer. It says that the treated rats had decreased activity across the amygdala. Decreased communication between across some general brain organ doesn't necessarily mean something was deleted; it hardly even fits a general definition of the word 'delete.' If you sedated the mouse you'd probably see a similar decrease in brain activity, and probably less anxiety at the threatening tones, too.
Besides, given that we don't actually know how or specifically where memories are stored, it's difficult to say whether or not this technique removes them. From a cognative science perspective you might say the memory has been wiped, because the behavioral feature associated with that memory is no longer present. But, we can't ask the mouse whether or not it remembers hearing that tone and getting shocked, so it's hard to say it's really gone. Besides, as you say, there's nothing to say that the memory was replaced, so how are we to know that the mouse isn't just regarding the memory of the shock in a different manner?
~Joe

 

[Igrow]

Now that could be a good tool to help curb the divorce rate in this country.
If troubled couples didn't care to use it, they might be able to use it on the
traumatized children left in their wake.

I think I'll opt-out, I have a lot of pleasant memories that I'm gonna hang on to...

 

[Finch]

On the same token, how do we know it doesnt? I think the brain is not a hard drive; memory cannot be truly

it seems more like this drug allowed them to overwrite the old bad memory with a neutral one

overwrited either, so where do you draw the line in terminology of brain as a hard drive, exactly? And where do you have evidence for that? You dont know that either- substituting your own explination on how a study came to its results, i cannot help but be dubious of that. We dont now for certain anything, as this is A preliminary study. At the same time, you don’t know it does not, either. No one does. That’s why we need… more study

 

[seedjar]

Well, we do know that memories aren't really localized - there's no neuron in your brain that means the color blue. And based on what we know about how neurons communicate with one another, the field of neural networks does shed some light on the basic constraints of neuroanatomy. I'm not needlessly speculating here; from what we do know about how the brain works, things like sensations and simple memories are localized in groups of neurons, but one individual neuron might play a part in the neural action of dozens of different such memories. When you take neurons out of a neural system, you don't remove individual memories - you diminish the system's ability to recognize stimuli in general. That's why I say it seems less likely that this technique is removing memories and is more likely overwriting or reassociating them; it sounds to me that the experiment perhaps leaves the mice with a more recent, tangible memory of hearing the tone for the first time and not getting shocked and that was what caused them to not fear the tone. (Because they had drug-induced amnesia, the tone would seem new even though it was not.) In any case, my real point was that it's hard to say what happened to individual memories, because all we are really observing is behavior.
~Joe

 

[Finch]

ok. I see where your coming from

 

[PlantAKiss]

I have a few memories I wouldn't mind wiping out.