Memory Erasure and its implications
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
PTSD affects many in lasting ways. People with PTSD experience vivid memories that reoccur from the past and cause significant impairments to daily life. PTSD also increases stress hormones as part of an unconditioned fear response. Thus, in response to a terrifying experience, human’s stress hormone levels increase. Those hormones excessively increase the strength of the consolidation process of conditioned fear. These show up later in durable “fear responses (conditioned responses, CR) to reminders of the event (conditioned stimuli, CSs). The events that PTSD patients experience are usually vivid and this enhancement of the emotional memories are mediated by noradrenergic (areas affected by norepinerphrine) activity in the amygdala. The overstimulation of the stress hormone systems due to very threatening events moderates an over-consolidation of the event, which results in a lasting traumatic memory. Researchers have recently started to research solutions for blocking these traumatic memories from coming back and reconsolidating the memories. One of these methods is memory erasure.
Propranolol
A beta-blocker that is currently used for conditions like high blood pressure and performance anxiety; it inhibits norepinephrine, a neurotransmitter, which is part of the production of strong emotions. It is now being researched for its impact on memory erasure.
Disappearing Fear Memories
Nader taught several dozen rats to associate a loud noise with a mild but painful electric shock. It terrified them—whenever the sound played, the rats froze in fear, anticipating the shock. After reinforcing this memory for several weeks, Nader hit the rats with the noise once again, but this time he injected their brains with a chemical that inhibited protein synthesis. Then he played the sound again. “I couldn’t believe what happened,” Nader says. “The fear memory was gone. The rats had forgotten everything.” The absence of fear persisted even after the injection wore off.
-"The Forgetting Pill"
12
http://www.wired.com/2012/02/ff_forgettingpill/
PTSD is a disorder that effects many in lasting ways. People with PTSD experience vivid memories that reoccur from the past and cause significant impairments to daily life (Schwabe, Nader, & Pruessner, 2012). PTSD also increases stress hormones as part of an unconditioned fear response (Brunet, Orr, Tremblay, Robertson, Nader, & Pitman, 2007). Thus, in response to a terrifying experience, human’s stress hormone levels increase. Those hormones excessively increase the strength of the consolidation process of conditioned fear. These show up later in durable “fear responses (conditioned responses, CR) to reminders of the event (conditioned stimuli, CSs) (503, Brunet et al., 2007)”. The events that PTSD patients experience are usually vivid and this enhancement of the emotional memories are mediated by noradrenergic (areas affected by norepinerphrine) activity in the amygdala (McGaugh, 2000; Phelps & LeDoux, 2005). The overstimulation of the stress hormone systems due to very threatening events moderates an over-consolidation of the event, which results in a lasting traumatic memory (Pitman, 1989). Researchers have recently started to research solutions for blocking these traumatic memories from coming back and reconsolidating the memories.
Even though PTSD is triggered by a stressful incident, it is really a disease of memory. The problem isn’t the trauma—it’s that the trauma can’t be forgotten. Most memories, and their associated emotions, fade with time. But PTSD memories remain horribly intense, bleeding into the present and ruining the future. So, in theory, the act of sharing those memories is an act of forgetting them.
-"The Forgetting Pill"
memory reconsolidation, the brain’s practice of re-creating memories over and over again.
Even though PTSD is triggered by a stressful incident, it is really a disease of memory. The problem isn’t the trauma—it’s that the trauma can’t be forgotten. Most memories, and their associated emotions, fade with time. But PTSD memories remain horribly intense, bleeding into the present and ruining the future. So, in theory, the act of sharing those memories is an act of forgetting them.
-"The Forgetting Pill"