Medication may one day erase bad memories

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Study showed a blood pressure pill weakened fear response in subjects

LONDON - 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.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29211183/

So this research project has now created a group of people who will have a lifelong fear of spiders? they don't say anything about 'deprogramming' the subjects. I find this type of research very unethical. This is supposed to be how the unabomber developed problems, he was a former particpant in an unethical 'research' project.

Postperson,
I just realized the furry animal in your avatar is a joey. How cute!

Merle

You don't know SKIPPY when you see him?

edit: correction 'her'. skippy is a girl.

Last edited by Postperson on 15 Feb 2009, 7:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Yikes, I guess not! Please let a Yank in on the skinny on Skippy!

Merle

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skippy_the_Bush_Kangaroo

The word Skippy (or Skip) is also a somewhat friendly term of abuse, it's sort of like 'yank', maybe, when used by other nationalities. Within Australia it's used by people of non-anglo saxon background about anglo-saxon descent Australians, I suppose in that sense it's a bit like WASP.

Apart from that, I just like the picture

ive learned that everything in this physicle universe can onely exist but in relation to its oppisit including my thoughts, if i took a pill that would erase bad thoughts and memories i would, it apears, effectively be erasing my measure of what my good thoughts and memories are. what a concept, tastes like mind control to me.i bet there is plenty of goverment funding in that research.

well, actually, in the States, the only people that detest being called Yankees are those with antebellum sympathies to the Southern states that seceded in our Civil War.

(and now I am really embarassed because all this time I thought the child in the picture with "Skippy" was YOU!)

Merle

It reminds me of the "research" the CIA did with LSD and other hallucinogenic substances in the 1950s. People would be given high doses without their knowledge just to see what would happen. Most of them either killed themselves or went insane from the high doses of acid, or from the belief that something was wrong with them that they couldn't shake. Orphans were given radioactive pills to see how their bodies would react. Not surprisingly, they all got extremely aggressive cancers and died. In one case, a group of black men were NOT treated for syphilis so that either a) it could be revealed whether syphilis affected blacks differently than whites or b) as control subjects in a syphilis drug trial. The men, not surprisingly, died of syphilis.

I personally think that many of the doctors who assisted Josef Mengele in his hideous experiments made their way to the US after the war and ended up in CIA employ, and the CIA rubber stamped whatever they wanted to do. If Nazi rocket scientists could be given immunity from war crimes prosecutions in order to exploit their knowledge, why not? Mengele himself may even have ended up here, since we really don't know what happened to him. It IS known that Mengele's kids ended up in Argentina, where they built an industrial empire using Nazi loot. Maybe the Unabomber was an unwitting "subject" in the Nazi doctors' experiments. Who knows?

oh absolutely, the importing of German (not necessarily Nazi although it's debatable) scientists was known as "Operation Paperclip", I believe.

I don't want to wipe my own memories of stupid things I've done, I want to wipe other peoples'

yeah it took me a while to get my head around that distinction, to us (and Euros too I think) all Americans are yanks.




ha, no well there's some resemblance to my childhood self there although I'm female and fairer in colouring, I had that chubby cheeked, rosy thing going on. There's also a resemblance to my dogs, I have two whippets and facially they resemble kangaroos.

so...like if I was younger and rosier then this




plus this




might equal this




or is that too much of a stretch of the imagination.

I'd be nice for me. I've lived in NC for 28 of almost 34 years of my life.

A pill that can erase 28 years of bad memories would rock!

the forget me shot

absolutely not! I can see that I always thought Skippy was a dog in your avatar. (I have interesting neural interpretation of my visuals) and that round cheeked bright haired child could definately have been your very self.

Merle

That would be horrifying. To only have good memories? These things happen for a reason. It's best not to tamper with them.