No more bad memories- just take a drug

This has all the overtones of Orwell’s 1984, but it’s less cheerful in some ways. Researchers at Harvard and McGill are trying to create a drug that will either block or remove bad memories to help people suffering from severe trauma.

The drug, propranolol, is ironically also used in the treatment of amnesia. It has been shown to reduce stress in recovering trauma patients. New York University has gone one step further, using another drug, UO126, to remove a specific memory in lab rats. UO 126 is another amnesia drug. See franklin’s article (grouped) for the details of that experiment. The ramifications of a working memory blocker are huge. Cognitive intelligence is based on memory, using it to assemble information. While the therapeutic value of these drugs is obvious, the potential for abuse is enormous. Like a bad science fiction movie, people could have memories erased. Those memories could be of crimes, or anything an abuser didn’t want them to remember. Variations on this theme could also be extremely dangerous. The development of a more potent head cleaner for humans could be like artificial amnesia, wiping out an entire life’s memories, maybe even the identity, of a victim. All technology comes with its own special risks. Trauma victims are tormented, sometimes for years, by stress. Their quality of life is marginal at best, and horrendous at worst. The question now is how to have a therapy without putting a weapon in the hands of someone abusing the technology?