Targeted memory erasure is no longer limited to the realm of science fiction. A new study describes a method through which a selected set of memories can be rapidly and specifically erased from the mouse brain in a controlled and inducible manner….
“While memories are great teachers and obviously crucial for survival and adaptation, selectively removing incapacitating memories, such as traumatic war memories or an unwanted fear, could help many people live better lives,” says Dr. Joe Z. Tsien, brain scientist and co-director of the Brain & Behavior Discovery Institute at the Medical College of Georgia School of Medicine.
Add memories of failed relationships to that list, doc.
Jesus, that’s scary.
I have a bunch of movies I’d LOVE to be able to see for the first time again. Music, too! Sign me UP.
They talked about that on Radio Lab like two months ago…very interesting.
My fiance does brain stuff on mice.
Heavy drinking not good enough for you?
i’d like to do it. how about erasing the last 8 years!
I want to get rid of any traces of those long assed YoutTube and SNL clips that you see all over the blogs nowadays. They mostly suck, and did I mention how long the can get to be? Mostly I want to forget that I was gullible enough to click ‘Play’ just because somebody said it was worth it.
#7
I want to enforce a two sentence rule on comments about videos.
Memory of a situation helps you learn from it. That which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
This totally skeeves me out. Can you imagine what the right wing freaks a la Sarah Palin and that Bachmann woman would want the government to do with this technology?
It just occurred to me Dan, the anti-gay marriage people would be lobbying for this to be used on homosexuals to “treat” or “cure” them.
Freaky implications for the future.
#11
Actually the evil guy in Eternal Sunshine was a weedy bisexual kind of guy who interfered with a normal heterosexual relationship and tried to warp it to include himself.
A hearty “LOL” to you sir!
I second!
John Bailo, you don’t just have a warped view of reality, you also have a warped view of my favorite movie.
I pity you.
Sweet. I can’t wait to be Rick Rolled for the first time all over again.
Did I leave a comment on this post last night?
I can definitely see applications for severe trauma like war memories and rape. Erasing relationships? Not a very good application for this technology.
bailo, you are quite unhinged.
Sounds like the morning after a binge. “I sucked your WHAT last night?”
It’s a bad idea to erase ANY memory, good or bad. How else are people going to learn from their mistakes?
The most disturbing aspect of the application of this technology would be the fact that people would lose the memories but not the changes associated with them.
Imagine that you have an encounter with a knife weilding maniac in a particular location and you develop a fear of that location.
Your first most likely ‘compensation’ would be to avoid the location. If this didn’t work you may wish to remove the memory of the attack.
Once the attack memory is removed however, you would still have the memory of avoiding the location, but no longer have any known (to you) reason for doing so.
You may start to suffer form some cognitive dissonance issues in not wanting to walk down ‘that street’, but having no idea why.
You may start to have feelings of paranoia in not knowing why things are not clear in your head (ie memories missing).
Bearing in mind that most of the people close to you would know of the trama they would have to hide that knowledge from you. This might increase your feelings of things being hidden from you.
What is a person but the sum total of their memories?
The cruellest part of dementia it would seem is the hollowing out of people as they lose all contact with their memories and their sense of self.
This would be a bad application of technology in this psychologist’s opinion.