Posted on 07/02/2007 7:05:02 PM PDT by james500
Do you have a really bad memory, or past heartache, that you would prefer to forget?
Researchers at Harvard and McGill University (in Montreal) are working on an amnesia drug that blocks or deletes bad memories. The technique seems to allow psychiatrists to disrupt the biochemical pathways that allow a memory to be recalled.
In a new study, published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research, the drug propranolol is used along with therapy to "dampen" memories of trauma victims. They treated 19 accident or rape victims for ten days, during which the patients were asked to describe their memories of the traumatic event that had happened 10 years earlier. Some patients were given the drug, which is also used to treat amnesia, while others were given a placebo.
A week later, they found that patients given the drug showed fewer signs of stress when recalling their trauma.
Similar research led by Professor Joseph LeDoux has been carried out at New York University on rats; scientists were able to remove a specific memory from the brains of rats while leaving the rest of the animals' memories intact. An amnesia drug called U0126 was administered.
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
Bad idea. Memories both good and bad make us who we are and teach us to cope.
Propranolol is certainly not a new drug.
Eliminates bad memories?
Did you say the next Date Rape Drug, or the Next Blind Date Drug?
As a New Yorker forced to live amongst the worst liberal scum the planets ever seen, will it make me forget that the Clinton co-conspirator was elected my Senator not once but twice? There is only so many times I can vomit and I would like to stop.
As Captain Kirk once said (When given an option to heal past memories in Star Trek V) - “I NEED my pain!”
I’ve got some pretty bad memories in my past. Without them I wouldn’t realize how good I have it.
Not to be administered until the perps’ last appeals have been exhausted.
Any doc friendly to the defense should be charged with Obstruction of Justice.
None for me, thanks. I need to remember why to never, ever, do that again . . .
Yeah, and what happens down the rode when they explode.
That’s easy for someone who doesn’t wake up in the middle of every night sweating his buddy getting blown up by a grenade to say.
The very immature trend to avoid emotional pain at all costs continues.
I hope so because I just saw Hillary on C-span and I want to forget that. Badly.
As a namvet, can relate. Ain’t a drug strong enough.
My grandfather spent a winter in the Ardennes and he brought home some nasty memories but he taught two generations of us that pain should be turned into strength and character.
>>; scientists were able to remove a specific memory from the brains of rats while leaving the rest of the animals’ memories intact<<
That is serious sci-fi stuff... at least til now.
You are correct. Propranolol has been on the market for well over 30 years. It was used to treat high blood pressure, angina, stage fright, etc. I don’t believe the study will make people forget things.
To be clear, I am not a vet. I saw a TV program about this study a few weeks ago, and the OP definitely doesn’t “get it” with respect to what this medicine offers people who suffer from PTSD. It was amazing what it did for Viet Nam veterans and women who were brutally raped and not able to move on with their lives.
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