Pill To Erase Bad Memories?

[RandySF]

http://www.zimbio.com/Reuters+Health/articles/478/Study+takes+step+toward+erasing+bad+memories

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)

[Quantess]

1. That's really interesting.

It sounds hopeful, but, there has been an epidemic of glad-handing out pills, with little or no counseling. The pills may help, but there is no replacement for talk therapy.

[Maru Kitteh]

2. BULL. ""We could show that the fear response went away, which suggests the memory was weakened,"

No serious scientist would dare jump to a "weakened 'bad' memory" as an outcome of a drug based on a reduced sympathetic nervous system response.

That's an extremely unfortunate quote by a quackpot, and some really shitty journalism.

Tell us, Dr. Quackpot, if you can point to the region in the brain where the "bad" memories are stored, and how you believe this drug targets "bad" memories, but leaves the normal ones alone? Tell us how this is even relevant, considering a great percentage of phobics don't actually have a bad memory associated with their phobia?

[sandnsea]

4. Agreed.

And it helps block adrenalin.

http://www.anxietyhelp.org/treatment/medication/inderal.html

[Maru Kitteh]

5. There ya go right? Adrenalin = Sympathetic Nervous System response.

And this guy had the nerve to publish?

[Smith_3]

3. Anyone seen that Aeon Flux episode?

Damn that was such a good show. I wish they had made more episodes.

[Quantess]

6. self edit. sorry.

[GoesTo11]

7. A pill will be much more efficient delivery than a glass

for the old memory blocking medication.

[Quantess]

8. Does anyone remember the film Jacob's Ladder?

As I recall, it was a movie about a vietnam vet given experimental drugs to repress his memory of the war.

[Maru Kitteh]

11. Yeah, it's a movie, no basis in reality. It doesn't work that way.

Long or short-term memory may be impaired by injury, disease, or some drugs. We can't pick and choose memories about dad coming home from the Waterbuffalo Club drunk, or a big spider on your little sister's back and erase them but keep the one where we took first place in the track meet in 9th grade.

[Quantess]

12. Did you even see the movie?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob's_Ladder_(film)

[Raine]

9. I wouldn't want anyone screwing with my memories

even the bad ones, that's opening a real Pandora's box. :yoiks:

[bananas]

10. Alcohol in pill form?

Dehydrated alcohol?

[SeattleGirl]

13. No, thank you.

I have a number of bad memories, but it is partially those memories, as well as the work I've done in overcoming the subjects of those memories, that helped make me who I am.

Taking those memories away from me would be like taking away a large part of who I am today.

Not perfect, certainly, but not all that bad either.

[zagging]

14. Now I'll never remember why I drank all that whiskey to forget