Scientists will help people forget about their most traumatic experiences. Bad memories will be alleviated or even removed by new medications.
A drug called propranolol, a commonly used beta-blocker that is usually prescribed to people with high blood pressure, is being clinically tested. It also appears to erase distressing memories in people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
This serious disorder affects about 30 percent of the people who served in the war and many others who, for example, were involved in horrific accidents. They are forced to relive their worst memories over and over again. Current treatments are limited to antidepressants and psychotherapy, which are not always effective.
– The idea of losing some of your emotions may seem strange. But it’s a relief for the person who suffered such a huge shock, says Karim Nader, a neuroscientist at McGill University in Montreal, who conducts the study in collaboration with Harvard University.
The problem of erasing bad memories was the subject of the critically acclaimed 2004 movie “In Love without Memory,” in which the couple, played by Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet, were stripped of memories of their relationship.
The hopes associated with propranolol are based in part on animal studies, but also on a small completed human clinical trial. Now Nader is doing a bigger study. In the first clinical trials, four out of nine PTSD sufferers experienced significant improvement after treatment with propranolol.
Nader suggests that this is related to the process of the so-called “reconsolidation” of memories he discovered in 2000. In the process, each time a memory – traumatic or not – is recalled, it becomes prone to change depending on what we feel or see in the present. When we stop remembering, the brain synthesizes proteins that allow you to fix the memory again and remember it for a long time.
Animal studies indicate that administration of beta-blockers such as propranolol before rewriting memories in the brain can stop the production of proteins that enable reconsolidation. Memories fade away or lose their emotional strength.
In the movie “In Love with No Memory,” a fictional procedure called Targeted Memory Erasure makes the memories of Carrey and Winslet disappear. The procedure tested by scientists at McGill and Harvard would be more subtle than the movie version.
“We don’t want to wave a magic wand and just get rid of their experiences,” says Nader. In some cases, these people suffered from PTSD for 30 years, it became part of themselves. Traumatic experiences are often formative experiences. It would be strange to wake up without remembering why you are who you are.
Scientists intend to focus on the amygdala, the area in the center of the brain that is responsible for emotional memory. The more objective memory elements are stored in the visual, auditory and motor cortex and should remain preserved.
Also read: When trauma hurts
In the new studies, patients will be given propranolol which takes up to 30 minutes to start working and lasts for a few hours. They will be asked to recall in detail their traumatic memories and what they felt. Scientists hope this will cause the brain to pull memories out of the archive, making them alive and active. Normally the memories are simply channeled back into storage, but Nader hopes propranolol will disrupt this process. This means that the objective memory elements will be preserved, but the negative emotions associated with them will be removed.
If the therapy finds broad application, the drug would be administered along with a conventional form of psychotherapy, such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).
“Everyone who responded to the treatment [in the first study] was very pleased with it,” says Nader. – They were content not having emotional baggage and keeping the integrity of the memory contents.
The effects of beta-blockers on memory function are studied all over the world. Barry Everitt, professor of behavioral neuroscience at the University of Cambridge, believes that Nader’s predictions about the widespread use of the drug are realistic.
“Propranolol is already licensed,” he says. – We know everything about beta-blockers: how they work, what are the risks, many of them are already available by prescription. Psychotherapy that would accompany treatment is already successfully used.
– It’s difficult to do for ethical reasons – the control group would have to recall painful memories to be given a placebo. But there’s a lot of potential in it, and I don’t think it’s bizarre.
Pain relief
Scientists may be able to help people forget about their most traumatic experiences
1) The amygdala seems to play a key role in controlling the memories and emotions that come out of it.
2) If someone mentions something traumatic, the amygdala turns on the memories. When it comes to thinking about something else, memories are saved again.
3) Propranolol seems to prevent recalled memories and associated emotions from being saved – so that they disappear or may even be erased
4) Traumatic memories may lose their emotional load, but people still remember the “facts”, which is what happened to them.
Text: Amy Turner
Also read: Infected Psychology