News
Erasing Memories
In Michel Gondry’s 2004 film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, the two main characters had their memories of each other wiped by a fictional firm where people can have painful memories deleted from their brains forever.
Just three years after the release of Eternal Sunshine, researchers found that injecting an ‘amnesia drug’ could take the emotional sting out of unpleasant memories. Then in 2009, a team at the University of Toronto succeeded in essentially selectively erasing memories in mice by injecting a toxin into the amygdala, the part of the brain which processes emotions. Since then, a number of different methods for manipulating memories have been studied such as inhaling xenon gas, taking propranolol, using lights, and playing sounds to people while they sleep.
Dr Aidan Horner has also extensively researched the science behind our memories, and was the senior author of the study into how playing ‘sound cues’ during sleep could help people forget painful experiences. He agrees that memory-weakening technology could be helpful for people with conditions such as PTSD. “Some individuals struggle to cope with specific traumatic memories. It is possible that by weakening them we could reduce these memory intrusions or reduce the emotional strength of the memory,” he says.
“Allowing individuals in a non-clinical setting to decide to ‘erase’ specific memories – if that was ever possible – simply because they caused some degree of emotional discomfort would seem less desirable,” he says.“
In real life, even aversive memories are important. Some believe we are the sum total of our memories and that messing with memories changes who we are.
Just three years after the release of Eternal Sunshine, researchers found that injecting an ‘amnesia drug’ could take the emotional sting out of unpleasant memories. Then in 2009, a team at the University of Toronto succeeded in essentially selectively erasing memories in mice by injecting a toxin into the amygdala, the part of the brain which processes emotions. Since then, a number of different methods for manipulating memories have been studied such as inhaling xenon gas, taking propranolol, using lights, and playing sounds to people while they sleep.
Dr Aidan Horner has also extensively researched the science behind our memories, and was the senior author of the study into how playing ‘sound cues’ during sleep could help people forget painful experiences. He agrees that memory-weakening technology could be helpful for people with conditions such as PTSD. “Some individuals struggle to cope with specific traumatic memories. It is possible that by weakening them we could reduce these memory intrusions or reduce the emotional strength of the memory,” he says.
“Allowing individuals in a non-clinical setting to decide to ‘erase’ specific memories – if that was ever possible – simply because they caused some degree of emotional discomfort would seem less desirable,” he says.“
In real life, even aversive memories are important. Some believe we are the sum total of our memories and that messing with memories changes who we are.