Researchers are developing methods to dampen or wipe out specific memories. In one new study, psychiatrists from McGill University and Harvard University gave trauma victims the hypertension drug propranolol, known to have memory-related side effects, over the course of a week just as the subjects recalled the unpleasant memories. According to an article in The Telegraph, the scientists were successfully able to "dampen" memories of rapes and accidents. Apparently, the subjects were less stressed out, and didn't exhibit raised heart rates, when thinking of the trauma. In another study at New York University, scientists claim to have wiped out single memories from rats. From The Telegraph:
The rats were trained to associate two musical tones with a mild electrical shock so that when they heard either of the tones they would brace themselves for a shock.
The researchers then gave half the rats a drug, called U0126 and known to cause limited amnesia, when playing one of the musical tones.
After the treatment, the rats that had been given the drug no longer associated that particular tone with an imminent shock but still braced themselves upon hearing the second tone, demonstrating only one memory had been deleted.
Prof Joseph LeDoux, who led the New York team, said: "Such treatments may have highly specific and potentially permanent effects."
