Johns Hopkins Researchers Discover How To Erase Memory

Very recently, researchers at Johns Hopkins University uncovered what may at first sight seem to be straight out of a science fiction or fantasy novel – the ability to selectively erase memories. Experimenting on lab mice, the team examined the cause of memory formation, specifically fear memory formation, which seemed to be linked to proteins in the nerve cells of the amygdala. The mice were exposed to a fear-inducing loud tone, and the level of protein in their brains was monitored. They found temporary increases in the amount of the particular proteins, calcium-permeable AMPARs, which peaked at 24 hours of exposure, and subsided after 48 hours. The calcium-permeable AMPARs are a particularly unstable protein, and can be removed from nerve cells. As a result, the hypothesis was that by removing these proteins, fear memories could be permanently erased as well as possibly the entire fear in general, through the removal of proteins and subsequent behavior therapy.

I found this article to be very interesting primarily because fear-induced trauma, as well as trauma in general, is a leading cause of social and mental disorders in humans, and while the operations were only conducted on mice, the potential of such a method could yield amazing results in the future. Furthermore, a close family friend of mine has in the past three years suffered from progressive depression resulting from several subsequent traumatizing events, and is very mentally unstable. If this therapy progresses and develops into a feasible treatment for fear/fear memory removal for people (as opposed to just mice), the population of people suffering from depression and trauma could be significantly reduced, not to mention suicide rates. While operations to remove a brain protein seem at best extremely risky with today’s technology, the possibility of doing so in the future is promising.

Source:

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/206204.php

Jeff Cao

VTPP 434, Section 502