LeDoux's team also confirms the idea that a part of the brain called the amygdala is central to this process - communication between neurons in this part of the brain usually increases when a fearful memory forms, but it decreases in the treated rats. This shows that the fearful memory is actually deleted, rather than simply breaking the link between the memory and a fearful response.
(Via The Anomalist.)
Imagine a drug therapy that renders beneficiaries into willful amnesiacs. The possibilities are both promising (I would argue that there are some memories that deserve to be forgotten) and chilling.
Excuse me while I add this to my teetering heap of science fiction story ideas.
3 comments:
We already have a product in the UK that turns people into willful amnesiacs. It's called Tennents Super Lager. A 4-pack of that and you won't remember which year it is never mind anything else! Good stuff!
The pace of British technological progress never ceases to astonish me!
philip k dick and charles stross beat you. paycheck by phil. and glass house by stross
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