

The Forgetting Pill Erases Painful Memories Forever - pier0
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2012/02/ff_forgettingpill/all/1

======
Alex3917
"Because [MDMA] triggers a rush of positive emotion, the patients recalled
their trauma without feeling overwhelmed. As a result, the remembered event
was associated with the positive feelings triggered by the pill."

For what it's worth, this isn't entirely true. What actually happens is that
MDMA shuts down the amygdala, which allows patients to access memories from
the objective perspective of someone who is no longer in danger, and then
reinterpret those memories in a more healthy way. The positive emotions
created by MDMA do help in this process, but it's not the entire story.

Michael Mithoefer refers to this starting at 10:45 in this MAPS lecture:

<http://www.maps.org/videos/source/video3.html>

And Peter Oehen has a more in depth explanation in his lecture here:

<http://www.maps.org/videos/source/video4.html>

~~~
sliverstorm
From the sound of it, then, this is the same as the normal healing/coping
process, except the road is shorted with the assistance of drugs?

~~~
salemh
Sometimes "normal health/coping" is not possible, or inexorably difficult.
PTSD example:
[http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8...](http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=ptsd+mdma)

So, you could argue that in some cases it is "shortened," and in many cases
for severe trauma, it is not shortened at all. Rather, it opens healing/coping
as an _actual_ possibility.

Especially for trauma which induces self or extro-destructive behavior, the
"long-road" to "normal healing/coping" could be dangerous.

------
fferen
What I find more interesting than repressing memory is enhancing it:

'If the genetic expression of PKMzeta is amped up—by, say, genetically
engineering rats to overproduce the stuff—they become mnemonic freaks, able to
convert even the most mundane events into long-term memory. (Their performance
on a standard test of recall is nearly double that of normal animals.)
Furthermore, once neurons begin producing PKMzeta, the protein tends to
linger, marking the neural connection as a memory. “The molecules themselves
are always changing, but the high level of PKMzeta stays constant,” Sacktor
says. “That’s what makes the endurance of the memory possible.”'

Anyone know of any product development based on this, or if it's viable?

~~~
rcthompson
The ability to forget unimportant stuff may be important to remembering the
important things in the long term. So I would never use such a drug unless it
had been tested for decades and shown not to have negative long-term effects
on memory.

~~~
NinetyNine
Another possibility is that a drug comes along and enhances cognitive function
with minimal side effects, and while the long term effects are virtually
unknown, users of these drugs outcompete those who don't. What do you think
any appropriate response to such a situation might be?

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Eliezer
Jeepers, that's like the 27th time someone has posted a memory-tampering trick
to HN in the last week.

You don't remember? You must have used one.

Incidentally, some of this research was _already written into_ a forthcoming
chapter of Methods, and people are going to think "Oh he just got that off
that HN article", and they're going to be wrong. 'Twas just an amusing
coincidence.

~~~
rbanffy
> someone has posted a memory-tampering trick to HN

This is hacker news. And what a wonderful thing to hack is someone's own
brain.

Of course, I'll wait until it's easier to rsync myself back to sanity if the
hack goes wrong.

------
rue
The potential for abuse seems staggeringly high.

~~~
moonchrome
You do realize this is extacy (MDMA) they are talking about ? I think any
revolutionary effects of that would have been discovered by now.

~~~
brother
No, Ecstasy (as it became known on the streets) is usually a mix of
methamphetamine and MDMA. The mixture can vary but MDMA alone is not an upper.
People abusing MDMA can't achieve the effects they want without the extra
dopamine flush.

MDMA has a very low addiction profile and has had a horrible life of
propaganda and misinformation thrown atop of it. MAPS is actually researching,
with promising results, the medicinal effects of it with PSTD.

MDMA can been used in therapeutic sessions (i.e. marriage therapy) with
staggering results. End of life treatment and acceptance (i.e. cancer) has
been shown to be wonderful for couples wishing to "get everything out", so to
speak.

MDMA isn't a drug you take to have wild manic sex and dance. Ecstasy is. MDMA
is a drug you take with your wife once and a while to open the floodgates of
emotion and talk about any little thing that could possibly be bothering you
or hindering the relationship without fear of repercussion. It's a drug you
can take to come to terms with dying and leaving your partner and kids while
having a long, open talk with them. It's a chemical that breaks down your
inhibitions and leaves you able to study what emotionally ails you without the
anxiety that usually coattails along.

MDMA is a medicine and we need to start seeing it as that. Sure it has it's
possible downsides (abuse potential, neurotoxicity) but we deal with these
downsides with any drug we prescribe. We need to give these tools back to
therapists so we can stop this cascade of emotional fuckery that we keep
passing on generation after generation.

Why should we only focus on treating peoples physical symptoms and not their
emotional state as well? I'm not speaking of mental illness, either. Along
comes a drug that gives great power and insight into the emotional state and
we illegalize it because a group of kids are abusing it. We need to pull our
heads out of our asses and realize that kids are abusing every prescription
drug that will give their head a tingle. We can't stop it, we can only attempt
to educate and curb it.

~~~
rue
MDMA is _definitely_ an upper, both in the sense of being a stimulant, and
elevating mood. You're correct that street varieties are now mostly mixed with
amphetamines.

…

I'll note that I wasn't referring to abuse in the sense of substance abuse. I
meant morally questionable medical and non-medical uses.

~~~
brother
It's a slight upper. Compared to it's amphetamine analogs, it's very weak.

I'd agree with you on use, but I'm more liberal when it comes to these things.
All medicines can have questionable medical/non-medical uses. Take alcohol for
example. The real date rape drug, as opposed to the scapegoat GHB/GBL.

------
ComputerGuru
Another ridiculously linkbait title from Wired, _completely_ misrepresents the
entire point.

It erases the _emotions_ associated with painful memories. Not the memories
themselves. You won't forget what happened. It doesn't have anywhere near the
same potential for abuse a drug fitting the headlines would have (à la MIB).

~~~
colanderman
Did you read the article? I did, and unless I totally missed something, yes,
this drug has the ability to erase specific memories.

~~~
ComputerGuru
Read it and here's what I think: It's a subtle difference. By overriding the
trauma associated with the memory, it becomes _possible to_ forget it, but it
does not in and of itself cause you to forget the memory.

When the memory loses its potency, it becomes just another passing detail. It
doesn't have any power over you, it will not haunt you, and in time _can_ be
forgotten.

~~~
colanderman
Except the drug does not "override trauma". It _actually causes you to forget
the memory you are recalling_.

Judging by your username, I'm going to guess you are familiar with the
operation of DRAM: it must periodically be refreshed by reading the data out
and then writing it back in. Human memory works the same way (albeit without
the requirement of continual refresh). The drug in the article _interrupts_
the write-back process, and the memory is then lost.

------
itmag
Speaking of this, has anyone tried Neuro-Linguistic Programming (eg the swish
pattern) to accomplish the same goal?

There are some interesting videos on Youtube of people having their phobias
cured, for instance.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
Looks like rubbish:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuro-
linguistic_programming#Em...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuro-
linguistic_programming#Empirical_validity)

Whenever something's proponent is arguing for suspending the scientific method
in preference for something that's "free from hypotheses, pre-conceptions and
assumptions, and seeks to describe rather than explain" you know you're in
trouble.

~~~
einhverfr
My views on NLP. I have known a lot of folks into it who had very little
success in their lives and others who had a great deal of success. I think the
problem for those who don't have success is that they are looking for a recipe
book, while very often times what you have to do is find flexible patterns you
can make work for you.

Of course this also means that one cannot just follow the techniques as they
are. It's an artistic, creative endeavor.

~~~
itmag
This is very interesting stuff. I need you to tell me more :)

~~~
einhverfr
For example, I noticed the NLP no/not problem before I had heard of NLP. I
noticed that people habitually create circumstances they fear and this was one
of the ways I sought to explain it. You can't imagine a negative, so try as
far as you can to think about what you want, not what you don't.

This being said there were a lot of things I never really thought were correct
in NLP or at least never worked for me. Some of the emphasis on puns for
example.....

~~~
itmag
Can I contact you somehow?

~~~
einhverfr
chris dot travers at gmail dot com.

Be happy to further continue this conversation.

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urbanredneck
What about long term? What is the effects in 10, 20 even 30 years on the
ability to remember? There are many issues with this, interesting as it may be
I remain sceptical.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
One must separate scepticism of the specific claim and scepticism of the
overall viability of the treatment. On the latter, you are correct.

The efficacy claim, though, if sustained, is alone tremendously profound.
There are many psychological diseases, at least in part based on memory, whose
alleviation would be worth the risk of complications developing decades down
the line.

------
kahawe
Actually this sounds a lot like what EMDR (eye movement desensitization and
reprocessing) does. As someone who has tried EMDR, it is strange how you
cannot re-connect with those painful feelings you had (in my case) 1 or 2
sessions ago and all you did was move your eyes. As far as I know, it has been
proven to be extremely useful but a consensus as to WHY it actually works has
yet to be reached.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMDR>

------
firefoxman1
This reminded me of a really good movie about a guy (Jim Carey) who gets a
painful memory erased and how he regrets it afterward. It's called Eternal
Sunshine of the Spotless Mind if anyone is interested.

~~~
underwater
The movie was referenced in the article.

~~~
mhitza
Thats why he was reminded of it.

