Recently, New York researchers discovered how to delete memories in rodents. If the memory-erasing drug could work on humans, the consequences to control what recollections remain in our minds would be monumental.
At Brooklyn’s SUNY Downstate medical center, researchers are recreating the theme behind Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Remember when Jim Carrey’s character Joel erased the painful memories of his relationship with Kate Winslet’s Clementine? It’s not just a fantastical premise; those researchers in Brooklyn injected a drug called ZIP into a rat’s brain, which blocks PKMzeta, a molecule that plays a major role in memory retention.
When the rats infused with ZIP tried to navigate a chamber filled with electric shocks, they continued to hurt themselves, forgetting what dangerous area continued to shock them. Before the injection, the rats could navigate the chamber safely.
Lead researcher Dr. Andre Fenton said: “Almost anything that you can connect to a mental experience would become modifiable.”
He’s thinking about benefiting those afflicted with Alzheimer’s or post-traumautic stress disorder. In those instances, the sufferers may indeed want a break from the nightmares they experience daily. A drug like ZIP could quell the negative memories, even if it was designed in such a way as to pinpoint which memories to target.
At that extreme, the effects of memory management drugs could be incredible. Think of all the dementia disorders treated safely with ZIP. Or perhaps rape victims can finally sleep at night with a few doses of the drug, erasing memories they want to cast away like an ugly coat.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, naysayers point out the potential problems of bringing ZIP to market. Say the CIA wanted to torture terrorist suspects and then make certain the victim doesn’t remember the torture. Toss him a little ZIP. Or conspiracy theorists might wonder if nefarious governments may want to enslave us with some ZIP injection (perhaps masquerading as flu shots), allowing us to forget the past transgressions of our elected officials.
There’s a more subtle implication of this neuroscience. What if all our first memories could be erased so we can experience those unique feelings once more? Imagine the first time you fell in love. The first time you heard Miles David. The first time you tasted cheesecake. By erasing the memories of those delicious moments, we could be enthralled once again by experiences we did often but couldn’t taste for the first time. It would transform our medical and social community.
But editing your memory bank could alter your personality. It could even kill you. Memories serve an evolutionary purpose, reminding us what’s unsafe about a certain situation, person, setting. If we’ve never “remembered” what a dangerous left-turn on the road looked like, we might be prone to trying it. If we’ve never seen a pickpocket get too close to comfort, we might be too naive for our wallet’s health.
Undoubtedly, holding onto certain memories is crucial to survival. If a drug like ZIP can identify certain memories to edit out, then that’s a discovery worth heralding. But if it accidentally wipes the whole slate clean, well, we’ve all seen Memento and The Bourne Identity. There’s always the risk of a disastrous fallout.
