Would it not be good if we could, by swallowing a pill, erase these memories and be “freed” from their grip so that we can get on with our lives? Think, for instance, of a woman who has been cruelly raped and brutally assaulted. Life sometimes throws nasty things at us – experiences that would hurt us so deeply that we are emotionally scarred for the rest of our lives. Anti-anxiety drugs or beta-blockers (such as Propranolol, scopolamine and other anti-cholinergic drugs) are currently used to prevent the formation of long-term memories by diminishing the strength of our memories of certain events.Īt a superficial level, this development will surely be greeted with enthusiasm. “Explicit” memory refers to what may be described as the “what”, as opposed to the “how” (implicit memory), of events.ĭr McGaugh explains that while a person suffering from Alzheimer’s disease can remember the mechanics of golf (the “how” of the game), he is unable to remember how many strokes he has taken in a game (the “what” of the game).
What caught my attention was research on the possibility of blocking long-term “explicit” memory of some events through the use of drugs. Two memory research experts, Dr James McGaugh and Dr Daniel Schachter, gave their reports at the dialogue chaired by Dr Leon Kass. RECENTLY, while doing research on biomedicine, I stumbled across the transcript of an interesting discussion on current research in memory formation conducted by the United States President’s Council on Bioethics.
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