See other Science/Tech Articles
Title: Erasing the Pain of the Past
Source:
abc
URL Source: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=2964509&page=1
Published: Mar 20, 2007
Author: RUSSELL GOLDMAN
Post Date: 2007-03-21 08:10:54 by Itisa1mosttoolate
Keywords: None
Views: 97
Comments: 8
Erasing the Pain of the Past Scientists Are Developing Drugs That Could Eliminate Traumatic Events From Our Memories By RUSSELL GOLDMAN March 20, 2007 — "I'd take it in a second," said Sgt. Michael Walcott, an Iraq War veteran, referring to an experimental drug with the potential to target and erase traumatic memories. Walcott, who served in a Balad-based transportation unit that regularly took mortar fire, now suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. Since returning to the United States two years ago, he has been on antidepressants and in group therapy as he tries to put his life back together and heal from the psychological scars of war. "There are moments," he said, "when you just want be alone and don't want to deal with everyone telling you that you've changed." There are many others like Walcott. The Army estimates that one in eight soldiers returning home from Iraq suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. Symptoms of the disorder, once known as shell shock, include flashbacks, nightmares, feelings of detachment, irritability, trouble concentrating and sleeplessness. Much about why painful memories come back to haunt soldiers and those who live through other traumatic experiences remains unknown. Scientists say that is because little is known about how the brain stores and recalls memories. But in their early efforts to understand the way in which short-term memories become long-term memories, researchers have discovered that certain drugs can interrupt that process. Those same drugs, they believe, can also be applied not just in the immediate aftermath of a traumatic event — like a mortar attack, rape or car accident — but years later, when an individual is still haunted by memories of event. The hope is that a post-traumatic stress disorder patient can work with a psychiatrist and focus a traumatic event, take one of these drugs and then slowly forget that event. With that hope, however, comes a series of ethical concerns. What makes up our personalities — the essence of who we are as individuals — if not the collected memories of our experiences? "This is all very preliminary," said Dr. Roger Pitman, a Harvard Medical School psychiatrist. "We're just getting started. There is some promising preliminary data but no conclusions." Much of the research Pitman is currently conducting on human subjects at Massachusetts General Hospital focuses on altering memories in the immediate aftermath of a specific type of trauma — Continued
Poster Comment: abc, easy as 1 2 3 some things that they don't want you to remember
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
#1. To: Itisa1mosttoolate (#0)
chemical lobotomy bump
For now there's still the bozo filter.
"The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes nor between parties either — but right through the human heart." — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
www.deltaflow.com/?p=402 The Memory Removing Pill Memory Pill 60 minutes has a report (A Pill to Forget?) (videos here) on a drug that can erase memories. Propranolol is a drug that (among other things) seems to erase link between an intense emotional event and the memory. Psychiatrist hope to treat patients suffering from post traumatic stress disorder (i.e. victims of war, rape, or accidents). Usually if someone has experienced a traumatic event and then, years later, sees or hears something that reminds them of that experience, then the emotions from the trauma come back in full force. However, the drug shows promise that it can remove these painful memories. It does its magic by blocking adrenaline from nerve cells. Adrenaline causes memories to really take root. We can see for ourselves: most long-lived memories are associated with some event that caused our body to produced lots of adrenaline. So, if the drug is taken shortly after a traumatic event, or even many years after the event, provided the victim is made to remember the thoughts and emotions of that time, then it breaks the link between the thoughts and the emotions. The memory fades away. Opponents of the drug believe that our memories make us who we are. Erasing painful memories would rob us of the chance to become better people. They also fear the drug will be used recreationally, to erase minor unpleasant or embarrassing moments from our memory. This strikes me as interesting and reminds me of a realization that a devotee recently shared with me: The devotee is interested in remembering Krishna at the time of death. Everyone else is interested in remember as little as possible at the time of death. This devotee doctor was telling me that death is super painful. Like 1000 scorpions biting you all at once. A dying person usually is given vast quantities of morphine to dull their brain so they feel and remember as little as possible. However, there comes a stage at the end of life where even morphine is no longer effective and the full pain takes effect. However, the jaws of death are just like the jaws of a cat carrying her kitten to the devotee. The rat lives in terror of the fearsome cat jaw, but the kitten purrs contently as its mother carries it in the very same jaw. The memory pill opponents do not know that we are not this body and mind. Our memories most certainly do not make us who we are. After all, we forget almost everything at the time of death. However, the subtle impressions remain. So, someone who has endured a life of a pig will subconsciously learn that maybe they should not engage in a gluttonous lifestyle when they become a human again. Can this pill erase these subtle imprints? - I don’t know. One frightening thing however is that while the drug can erase bad memories it can also probably erase good ones. The Vedic culture makes use of so-called samskaras. Rituals at important life events that serve as imprints in people’s memories. If the samskaras are Krishna conscious, then the person recalling these memories at the time of death can attain liberation (and avoid repeated birth in the animal kingdom) (BG 8.6 + BG 14.15). Another perspective is that living with painful memories, day-after-day, is suffering we were destined to receive by our previous actions (bad karma). If we try to escape the suffering by taking a pill, it will just come back at us in some other way. No one can escape their karma (unless, of course, they practice devotional service and Krishna personally intervenes to give them a special personalized reduced package of karmic reaction that is best suited to bringing them back to Godhead). So, this is yet another example of today’s culture of ignorance and forgetfulness. Materialists want to forget as much as possible, while devotees want constant remembrance (smartavyah satatam vishnu). This entry was posted on Sunday, June 24th, 2007 at 7:13 pmand is filed under body, realization.
That was 2 yrs ago, how did you find it?
HOT - The Memory Removing Pill -- 60 minutes has a report on a drug that can erase memories. Propranolol is a drug that (among other things) seems to erase link between an intense emotional event and the memory. Psychiatrist hope to treat patients suffering from post traumatic stress disorder (i.e. victims of war, rape, or accidents).
Plane crashes can erase memory too.
A bullet in the head also works quite well.
www.zimbio.com/Reuters+He...ward+erasing+bad+memories Study takes step toward erasing bad memories Feb-15-09 7:20am From: www.reuters.com LONDON, Feb 15 (Reuters) - A widely available blood pressure pill could one day help people erase bad memories, perhaps treating some anxiety disorders and phobias, according to a Dutch study published on Sunday. The generic beta-blocker propranolol significantly weakened people's fearful memories of spiders among a group of healthy volunteers who took it, said Merel Kindt, a psychologist at the University of Amsterdam, who led the study. "We could show that the fear response went away, which suggests the memory was weakened," Kindt said in a telephone interview. The findings published in the journal Nature Neuroscience are important because the drug may offer another way to help people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and other problems related to bad memories. Traditionally, therapists seek to teach people with such disorders strategies to build new associations and block bad memories. The problem, Kindt said, is the memories remain and people often relapse. Animal studies have shown that fear memories can change when recalled, a process known as reconsolidation. At this stage they are also vulnerable to beta-blockers like propranolol, which target neurons in the brain, the researchers said. Kindt and her team's experiment included 60 men and women who learned to associate pictures of spiders with a mild shock. This experience created a fearful memory, the researchers said. Other participants saw the same picture but did not receive an electrical shock. For these people this established a "safe" association without a fear response or bad memory. One day later people given the drug had a greatly decreased fear response compared with people on the placebo when shown the picture and given a mild shock, the researchers said. "There was no difference to the fear spider and the safe spider," Kindt said. "This shows it is possible to weaken the underlying memory by interfering with it." The next steps are to look at how long the drug's effects on memory last, and testing the treatment in people who actually are suffering from some kind of disorder or phobia, Kindt said. (Reporting by Michael Kahn; Editing by Maggie Fox and Elizabeth Piper)
#2. To: Itisa1mosttoolate (#0)
"This is all very preliminary," said Dr. Roger Pitman, a Harvard Medical School psychiatrist. "We're just getting started. There is some promising preliminary data but no conclusions."
#3. To: Itisa1mosttoolate (#0)
#4. To: TwentyTwelve (#3)
#5. To: Itistoolate (#4)
That was 2 yrs ago, how did you find it?
#6. To: TwentyTwelve (#5)
#7. To: Itistoolate (#6)
Plane crashes can erase memory too.
#8. To: Itistoolate (#6)
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest