Memories 'Reprogrammed' in Mice: Bad Memories 'Wiped' — Scientist Claim This Technique Will Be Used To 'Help People'

Photo by Nina Matthews Photography.

By Thomson Reuters
The frailty of remembrance might have an upside: When a memory is recalled, two research teams reported on Wednesday, it can be erased or rewired so that a painful recollection is physically linked in the brain to joy and a once-happy memory to pain.

Read a summary of the study HERE

While lab rodents were used in the research, it adds to growing evidence that the malleability of memory might be exploited to treat disorders such as post-traumatic stress.

In both studies, scientists focused on a phenomenon called reconsolidation. Discovered in the 1990s, it refers to the fact that when a memory is retrieved, its physical manifestation in the brain is so "labile," or changeable, that it can be altered. False memories can form, and the associated emotions can flip.

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"We could switch the mouse's memory from positive emotions to negative, and negative to positive," Tonegawa told reporters.

Human memory circuits similar

More research is needed before anything similar could be used in people, MIT's Roger Redondo said, "but the circuits appear to be very similar" as in mice.

In a separate study, researchers at Boston's McLean Hospital also exploited the malleability of reactivated memories to erase them completely.

Read a summary of the study HERE

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