Researchers have figured out how bad memories
are erased from the brain, which is great,
because I have to forget this thing that happened
in the desert before court tomorrow.
Anthony here for D News.
And I think we've all wondered just when we'll
be able to Eternal Sunshine all the nasty stuff out
of our memories-- you know, visit a doctor, pop a pill,
and proof.
Whatever traumatic stuff is messing with you,
it's just gone.
You know, the secret to getting over a painful memory
lies in a process called memory extension.
Over time, it becomes easier to walk by the place
where your break up happened because the traumatic memory
of that place is replaced by all the more recent ones
where nothing happened while you walked by there.
But what physical process causes memory extinction?
What makes those painful memories fade?
A new study published by MIT says
it all lies in a gene called Tet1, which
controls the expression of other genes in your hippocampus
and cortex-- two bits of your brain
that are important to learning and memory.
Two groups of mice were studied.
One had a normal level of Tet1, one group
had its ability to make Tet1 removed.
And all of the mice were put into a cage
and given an electric shock.
And then over time, they kept being put into the cage,
but without ever being shocked again.
And the mice with normal Tet1 levels
eventually were not stressed out by the cage.
But the mice without Tet1 never stopped being frightened.
And it's not that the mice without Tet1
couldn't make new memories.
They seemed to learn and remember new things just fine.
But memory extinction is not actually
about old memories disappearing, it's
about having both the old and new memories and your brain
being able to phase is the old one
out as it becomes less relevant.
The mice without Tet1 couldn't do that.
The two memories existed just as powerfully at the same time.
So no Tet1 means bad memories never
lost their importance or clarity.
But what happens if you can boost someone's levels of Tet1?
The MIT researchers believe it could
lead to new treatments for things like addiction and PTSD,
and maybe one day trickle down into a pill that
helps take the sting out of some of the other traumatic life
events that are hard to get over.
There are probably some other things to figure out there too,
I'd imagine, like does Tet1 just wash away all old trauma?
Can we really create something that
can just target one specific memory?
I love this idea as a form of therapy
for people who have had extremely traumatic events
in their life, but I hate to see it become too widely used.
I mean, imagine a future where we have the ability
to decide how important every event in our life
is and just ditch the ones that we don't think are relevant.
I feel like that's kind of a recipe
for a society full of overconfident dummies.
I don't know what.
Do you think?
Would you use a memory removal pill?
Let us know in the comments and subscribe for more D News.