Can you delete your memories?

Have you ever wished you could just forget that something ever happened? Maybe it’s that really embarrassing thing you did back in high school. Maybe you want to erase the memory of a car accident you had. Or maybe you just want to forget every detail of your ex boyfriend or girlfriend. Wouldn’t it be nice? Too bad it’s impossible right … maybe not!Let’s start with the basic question; what is a memory? At a neurological level, memories are formed by the firing and wiring of neurons in your brain. Essentially, your brain learns to form links between different neurons so that when one cell is fired the entire circuit is triggered causing you to remember. Whenever you remember a memory you are essentially firing and rewiring neurons in your brain, creating new proteins whenever the memories are recalled and therefore recreating the memory; often times not as accurately as you may think.Elizabeth Loftus proved evidence for this in an experiment in which participants were shown a simulated video of a car crash. Following the viewing, participants were asked questions about what they saw; however depending on the types of words and phrases used within these questions the answers differed substantially. For example, participants asked how fast the cars were going when they ‘smashed’ into each other reported a higher speed than those asked how fast they were going when they ‘hit’ each other.So if we know that the creation of a memory requires proteins in the brain to be formed and we also know that memories are recreated when we remember them … what happens if we stop these proteins from forming during the process of remembering?To find out a scientist named Karim Nader conducted an experiment involving rats by which a sound was played and immediately after an electric shock was administered. After several weeks the rats learnt to anticipate the shock and tensed up in fear whenever they heard the noise. Nader then played the sound and injected the rats’ brains with a chemical that inhibited the formation of proteins. So what happened next? The memory was gone. By inhibiting the formation of new proteins the original memory no longer existed.Scientists have since examined ways in which they can target certain proteins across different parts of the brain responsible for the experience of particular physiological and psychological reactions. A beta-adrenergic blocker called propranolol (which inhibits norepinephrine - a neurotransmitter assisting in the creation of emotions) was shown to reduce physiological responses when remembering an emotional event. However the problem with this is that it eliminates all emotional responses including the positive.A preliminary finding in another study however has suggested that there may be a drug, which can target the recall of just the negative memories. A single dose was shown to lead to a significant reduction of memory recall of previously seen aversive pictures. This drug however had no impact on the memory of neutral or positive pictures, essentially assisting in forgetting bad memories. Although research in this area is relatively new it does suggest potential ways to treat disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder or anxiety.This research however begs the questions … if you were given a forgetting pill, would you take it?