Medical Physics: Traumatic Memories...

Soldiers haunted by scenes of war and victims scarred by violence may wish they could wipe the memories from their minds. Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University say that may someday be possible.


A commercial drug remains far off — and its use would be subject to many ethical and practical questions. But scientists have laid a foundation with their discovery that proteins can be removed from the brain's fear center to erase memories forever.


I am sensitive to the plight of soldiers returning from the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts.  This discovery comes decades after the Vietnam conflict and my cousin William Banks (deceased, and plagued with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or as it was known back then as "shell shock").


Some ethical questions will be raised in regards to: if memories could be selectively erased, what would be the byproduct?  We paid for and enjoyed the Bourne Trilogy because up to this point, selective memory erasure was seen to be impossible, a holy grail in neuroscience.

Method to erase traumatic memories may be on the horizon, by Meredith Cohn, The Baltimore Sun 

Report: Calcium-Permeable AMPA Receptor Dynamics Mediate Fear Memory Erasure, by Roger L. Clem and Richard L. Hugani