Scientists Erase Specific Memories in Mice

[cosmicone]

Source: Yahoo

WEDNESDAY, Oct. 22 (HealthDay News) -- It sounds like science fiction, by scientists say it might one day be possible to erase undesirable memories from the brain, selectively and safely.

Using a complex genetic approach, U.S. and Chinese researchers believe they have done just that in mice, but the feat is far from being tested on humans.

Study co-author Joe Z. Tsien, co-director of the Brain & Behavior Discovery Institute at the Medical College of Georgia, Augusta, says the "work reveals a molecular mechanism of how can be done quickly and without doing damage to brain cells."

The finding is published in the Oct. 23 issue of Neuron.

Humans plagued by painful memories have long wished for a way to eject them from the brain. The concept was the premise of the popular 2004 film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, in which two former lovers pay a "memory-erasure" service to expunge the unhappy affair from their minds.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20081022/hl_hsn/scientistserasespecificmemoriesinmice

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This will come in handy for rethugs after Nov 04 :rofl:

[dennysp]

1. Ha! My husband has been doing this for years!!!

[HomerRamone]

10. How can they tell what a mouse remembers?

The mice told them?

[vagabund]

18. lol

I thought the exact same thing.

[fed_up_mother]

21. I guess the mouse can't remember how to go through a maze, or some such thing.

[applexcore]

29. Most likely by using classical conditioning,

such as Pavlov did with dogs. Once they erase the memory, they would be able to tell if they were still conditioned to the stimulus.

[inanna]

2. I don't like the sound of this. n/t

[Exultant Democracy]

3. This isn't that new, the science behind memory is advancing rapidly

not surprisingly what they have found is that most of what we remember is bullshit that we made up for our own benefit.

[John Q. Citizen]

4. "We can remember it for you wholesale!"

- Phil Dick story.


Yeah, kind of like Reagan and Iran/Contra.

"I don't remember." - RR

[pattmarty]

5. All I have to say is: 19 fucking 84.......

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

22. Did they erase memories in 1984?

[Waiting For Everyman]

28. They did it in 19-fucking-67, I can tell you that for sure.

It's a long but true story which is never believed, so I won't go into it. This isn't new. They (gov't funded operatives) have been working on how to get rid of "inconvenient memories" ever since the "powers that be" realized that hundreds of thousands of VN veterans would be coming home with them. The vets who saw things we never admitted to, are mostly the ones who were systematically, let's say, "encouraged to die off" or outright disappeared.

Cheeky of them, to be pinning the rationale for this research on helping PTSD. Oh I'm sure that's the intention. :sarcasm:

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

33. I thought they were talking about the book 1984.

[Lautremont]

6. "Please erase the past eight years. Thank you."

[NeoConsSuck]

20. You beat me to it

:toast:

[undeterred]

23. Can they make us all forget?

[alfredo]

24. I want them to erase the horrid memory of Goatse

[Nambe]

7. George, John, and Sarah; escapees.

[madmusic]

8. Wasn't Ronald Reagan the last Republican president?

I'm trying to remember.

[cobalt1999]

9. Isn't that what alcohol is for?

My bad & embarrassing memories are all that keeps me humble.

[Nihil]

30. Yeah but it was harder to get the mice to sober up.

Personally, I think that they may be over-estimating their success ...
When replaced in the maze to test the effect of the "erasure" the mouse
still recognises it but thinks "Bugger. Last time I went down there I
woke up with a hell of a headache ... let's try the other direction!"

:-)

[cobalt1999]

31. LOL

:rofl:

[customerserviceguy]

11. I would imagine

that by using similar genetic techniques, it would be possible to implant memories in the brain. I mean, after all, what is a memory? It's just a set of chemicals arranged in a certain way that can later be read by the conscious mind. If we can duplicate the arrangement of the chemicals, and hook them into the memory centers of the brain, we can give a person a pseudo-experience that for all intents and purposes, is as valuable as if it had actually happened.

While it would be great to get the knowledge contained in a book implanted into your brain, the potential for abuse of this technology is what really freaks me out.

[StarryNite]

12. Men in Black

What were those little memory erasers called? I forget. :rofl:

[Gman]

16. "Flashy Thingies"?

[StarryNite]

25. That's it!

Flashy Thingies! Wow thanks! Now I'll be able to sleep tonight. :rofl: I think the technical name for them was "Neuralizers".

[Sin]

13. saw this on showtime.

About a year ago it was at the start or the middle of the sorta expo show with that Ira Glass guy, This American Life or something of the like.
Basically it's a case of they didn't intend to make it. But after people found out about it lots of people with problems of abuse in there past and things of that nature they started to to write to the doctors to wipe them clean.

I think its a drug that they can administer.

[Milspec]

14. Damn all the good replys are all ready taken

Hate when that happens. :smoke:

[cobalt1999]

15. There was an old Sci-Fi story about how in the future the rich would buy the memories of the poor

You could sell the memory of your first kiss; that trip to Hawaii; your wedding, etc.

The person who bought the memory would have it as if it was their own and your memory of said event would vanish.

People would get disparate and sell off everything. Great story.

[Toucano]

17. Have they seen The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind?

All kinds of things can go wrong!

LOL!

[IDemo]

19. If you fail to pay your dememorization clinic bill, do they re-implant everything?

[The Roux Comes First]

26. What if you have second thoughts (pun intended)?

I'm probably being too damned serious for this thread, but I have to offer that I'm not sure I could come up with a meaningful-enough personal memory that I would "want" to have erased.

And I am very skeptical at the whole concept. My vague sense is that the human brain at least (and I don't want to discount the meeces here) stores much material in such a complex web-ian fashion that the likelihood of selective memory erasure seems extremely low.

[Endangered Specie]

27. Damn I forgot what this thread was about

:banghead:

[raccoon]

32. I was thinking, wouldn't that be nice? Lots of memories I wish I could dump in the recycle bin.

Then others pointed out how TPTB could use this to control people. So I guess it's not such a good thing.

[NashVegas]

34. This Is So Not Good

Learning to cope with life's little punches is the whole point of being here. It's called "growing up." A lot of us, admittedly, never seem to get around to it, but there it is.

And the possibilities for un-ethical misuse are fear-inspiring.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

35. Will it also erase the lessons learned by life's suckage?

My painful experiences are, in a large part, responsible for the compassion I feel now...