Memories already recorded in long-term memory can be erased if they are vividly recalled again and at that moment they are affected — for example, with drugs. But not only…
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Source www.galactic.org.ua
Mark Eisenberg and his colleagues at the Wisemann Institute in Rehovot report in the current issue of the journal Science that they have found a new method for controlling the brain and erasing memories. They conducted a study in rats and fish that could pave the way for drugs that erase certain memories without affecting others.
Each memory site in the brain undergoes a process of ‘maturation’ called ‘hardening’ that occurs immediately after it is formed. It was tentatively thought that the only way to erase memory was to use memory-erasing drugs for a short period of time—about an hour or two after the memory of an event was acquired and before it was permanently planted in the brain. Later, in the course of research, it turned out that the ‘window’ that erases the memory opens every time a person suddenly remembers about the “erased” event. Also, some old memories are erased while others are not. A team of scientists led by Mark Eisenberg believes they have invented a way to target the properties of memory blocks about certain events, which allows you to find out whether it can be erased or not.
Memories are included in the packages. For example, we associate certain foods with taste memories, positive or negative. Also in dealing with people. When meeting a person, our ‘dominant’ memory will decide how we will react to him — positively or negatively. Eisenberg’s group found that these ‘dominant’ memories could be erased. They exposed rats to scents and fish to flashes of light associated with both good and bad memories. In both cases with rats and fish, the memory could be erased by applying the appropriate drug to the animal within a few minutes after the event.
This discovery is likely to help in the future develop methods for erasing unwanted memories for a person, and thus solve some types of mental illness and psychological trauma associated with certain negative life events.