Can We Erase Our Bad Memories?

Certain memories may follow us for the rest of our lives, whether they be from a terrible breakup or a horrific life experience. However, what if there was a method for you to forget about things entirely? Can negative memories be erased by science?

Scientists now know that the notion that memory functions like a file cabinet with distinct memories kept in separate brain regions is false. Memory is an immensely complicated process. Each memory is actually a brain-wide process. In the event that you are able to recall this film, it is because your brain's neurons are firing and triggering new connections, thus rewriting your mental circuitry. Furthermore, proteins in the brain help to partially support this transition.

What happens if there are no proteins available?

It's just not possible to create memories. Really, to test this, scientists have given medications to animals that stop these proteins from developing.

The animals don't remember anything that happened soon after taking the medication as a result.

It was via this research that scientists were able to determine which long-term memories should be deleted.

You see, your brain fires and rewires itself each and every time you recall a memory. In actuality, you are actually physically altering a memory in your mind every time you think back on it. And every time, that recollection is little modified to match your present ideas. Recalling is an act of imagination and invention; therefore, the more you think back on past experiences, the less true they seem to be.

In fact, scientists have measured this shift. Hundreds of people were questioned about their experiences of the terrible day after 9/11. Thirty-seven percent of the information have changed in a year. Almost half of the information have disappeared or altered by 2004. Moreover, as memories are created and reconstructed each time, they can be successfully erased if the protein-inhibiting medication is given during a memory recall.

In order to test this, researchers used lab rats and shocked them with an electric jolt after playing a sound for them. The rats eventually realized that if they heard the sound, a shock was about to happen after doing this several times.

They would so get tense and freeze each time they heard it. These rats would react to the noise even months later, but if the medication was given beforehand, the rodents would no longer remember the sound and would just keep going. They could no longer recall that particular sounds. In order to confirm that the medication wasn't only resulting in extensive brain damage, researchers conducted these tests on several populations.

After hearing both alarms for a shock, the mice finally developed a phobia of both. However, if the medication was given and only one of the sounds was played, the mice would only forget that tone and would not stop being afraid of the other.

Scientists have found throughout time that certain medications target certain proteins in various brain regions. Therefore, if a memory triggers a negative emotion, removing the association between the two can be achieved only by targeting a protein in the brain's emotional areas.

It has the potential to be a very useful tool, particularly for those with conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder. Even if these medications are still in their very early phases, the issue of whether or not you would take a "forgetting pill" still needs to be asked.

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