Ok, so we all have those memories that sit locked deep in the chasm of our brains. The ones we really don’t want to relive. Be they embarrassing, painful, or just plain bad, we really would like them to just go away … forever.
Well, some psychologists have come up with a concoction of pills that can prevent the brain from reliving the bad experiences.
Now it’s not like the memory eraser from Men In Black that clears out a set span of memories completely, but rather a more specified fear management. The drug is being developed and tested at the University of Amsterdam (is that ironic, or is it just me…?).
“Sixty volunteers were shown pictures of spiders and given a mild electrical shock to create bad memories. The next day, they saw the pictures again, but half were given the drug propranolol, a beta-blocker commonly used to treat heart disease. The other half took a placebo pill.”
“The participants returned a third day and were shown the pictures again. The researchers found that people given propranolol had a much lower emotional response — measured by a startle reflex — to the images.”
Great, so on top of depression medication you can go ahead and pop some pills to forget that unfortunate swimsuit accident at summer camp in the 5th grade. Why not? We take pills for just about everything now, but there is some opposition.
Think about it, it’s the bad memories that teach us lessons. We think before we act (most of us at least). When we remember, “Oh yea, the last time I did this it took me three weeks to find my dignity,” and then stop ourselves from doing said event again. I’m gonna have to abstain from poppin’ these pills anytime soon, although I do sympathize with those who wish to get rid of those life-altering, horribly depressing and sad memories.
Filed under: Mental Health | Tagged: Amsterdam, drugs, forget, Jason Lenhart, memory, Mental Health, pills, remember
