Neuroscientists have been studying learning and memory for many years. Some studies are done at the systems level, with behavioral tasks, functional neuroimaging, and lesions. Other studies are done at the cellular and molecular level, particularly focusing on the importance of the NMDA receptor in long-term potentiation of synapses, and the importance of DNA transcription and protein synthesis in the growth of new synapses to consolidate memories permanently. At least since the description of
Korsakoff's syndrome in the 19th century, it has seemed clear that there is one mechanism for short-term memory, and another mechanism for long-term memory, and some mechanism(s) for transferring from short-term to long-term.
Since some time before the 90s, it has been known that elevated levels of adrenaline strengthen the formation of memories. This seems intuitively obvious, and it has spawned a bunch of clinical interest in possibly preventing PTSD (which I first learned about from
Jamesk's post here). This has received quite a bit of media attention. The mechanism essentially involves weakening (though likely not blocking altogether) the transfer of information from short-term to long-term memory, although I don't think the mechanism has been well elucidated yet.
It has been known since at least as far back as the 80s that this transfer process involves transcription and protein synthesis. Also, it has been known that various disruptions (including electroshock) can block this transfer. More surprisingly, it has been observed at least as far back as 1968 that these amnesic treatments could also destroy existing long-term memories if those memories were first recalled into active awareness. This led to a theory called "reconsolidation", which means pretty much what it sounds like. Putting these pieces together, around 2000 it was demonstrated that activating a long-term memory, and then subsequently blocking protein synthesis in the area of the brain associated with the particular memory, caused the memory to disappear. This raises the possibility of
Eternal Sunshine-style selective removal of memories
More recent cutting-edge research on the molecular details of memory have raised an astonishing, even shocking memory-hacking possibility. It was found that an enzyme called protein kinase Mzeta is involved in the
maintenance of long-term memories. In very recent studies in rats, researchers were able to completely erase long-term memories by infusing a blocker called ZIP into the appropriate area of the rats' brains, even long after the memories had been consolidated and stable. This effect is non-specific; that is, the implication is that they are erasing
all of the rats' long-term memories!
Of course, there are a number of glaring questions about these studies. For one, the observation that inhibition of an enzyme can erase a long-term memory seems to contradict the dictum that long-term memories are eventually represented by growth of new synapses. I haven't seen any discussion in the literature yet of how to resolve this. Also, no one would believe that a drug could erase your memory of, say, how to walk, or how to speak English. What would it even mean to erase "all" of your long-term memories? For these rats, they essentially have only one memory: they are born in small, boring cages, they eat the food placed in the cage, drink the water placed in the cage, and then one day are trained with some experimental task. That's the only thing they ever do! They might have memories of miscellaneous tidbits, but nothing of any import either to us or to them, really. The one task they learn does appear to be completely and permanently erased by the infusion. It would be interesting to see what effects this procedure has on subjects with a richer repertoire of memory.
But saying that, I think we're veering rapidly into very questionable ethical territory. Tell me honestly, how many of you
aren't wondering at this point what the CIA has done with these chemicals already? Frankly, given the amount of press the beta blockers/PTSD story has received, I'm quite surprised we haven't heard anything about the memory-wipe drug yet in the popular media. I suppose I'm glad, because God knows how inaccurate and misleading the coverage would inevitably be.
King George
He felt this manipulation was necessary in society, which he regarded as irrational and dangerous as a result of the 'herd instinct' that Trotter had described. Adam Curtis's award-winning 2002 documentary for the BBC, The Century of the Self, pinpoints Bernays as the originator of modern public relations.... Bernays' vision was of a utopian society in which the dangerous libidinal energies that lurked just below the surface of every individual could be harnessed and channeled by a corporate elite for economic benefit. Through the use of mass production, big business could fulfill constant craving of the inherently irrational and desire driven masses, simultaneously securing the niche of a mass production economy (even in peacetime), as well as sating the dangerous animal urges that threatened to tear society apart if left unquelled. Bernays' magisterial, philosophical touch is in evidence in Manipulating Public Opinion (1928) when he writes: "This is an age of mass production. In the mass production of materials a broad technique has been developed and applied to their distribution. In this age, too, there must be a technique for the mass distribution of ideas."...
Take the 'black death' - why did it spread / exist to begin with: because people did totally un-natural things with their waste & excrement) in concentrated areas, where they also lived and worked.
They packed themselves into paved areas and threw their shit and piss out into the street.
And what do most of our infrastructures do with it now? They do the same, except they put it into pipes underground instead, and then add poisons to it, then dump it back in the land or sea or rivers. Which is odd, cause when they lived out in nature they knew to bury it in the ground properly. Composting. And many of the biosciences people are just sickos that want to do tests on animals and fetuses. They know damn well none of that is needed to understand how to cure anything.
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