The idea of a pill that could make you forget something, or that could modify the emotional charge of a past experience, does seem rather disturbing.
Yet experiments on animals have gone a long to revealing the molecular mechanisms behind the formation and maintanence of memory traces. Much of the early work focussed on dangerously toxic drugs but recently more targeted approaches have appeared.
Kolber argues that we should not shy away from research in this area or brand the whole idea unethical. Rather we should consider the costs and benefits on a case-by-case basis.
The fears about pharmaceutical memory manipulation are overblown. Thoughtful regulation may some day be appropriate but excessive hand-wringing now over the ethics of tampering with memory could stall research into preventing post-traumatic stress in millions of people. Delay could also hinder people who are already debilitated by harrowing memories from being offered the best hope yet of reclaiming their lives.He says that
Given the close connection between memory and a sense of self, some bioethicists...worry that giving people too much power to alter their life stories could ultimately weaken their sense of identity and make their lives less genuine.This is a complex issue. I can see his point, although I'm not sure the rescue worker example is the best one. A rescue worker, at least a professional one, has chosen to do that kind of work. The experiences that are part of that job are ones they decided to have - or at least that they knew were a realistic possibility - and that may be an expression of their identity.
These arguments are not persuasive. Some memories, such as those of rescue workers who clean up scenes of mass destruction, may have no redeeming value. Drugs may speed up the healing process more effectively than counselling, arguably making patients more true to themselves than they would be if a traumatic experience were to dominate their lives.
The argument is perhaps more convincing in the case of someone who, quite unexpectedly, suffers an out-of-the-blue trauma. In this case, the trauma has nothing to do with their lives; if it interferes with their ability to function, it might "stop them from being themselves".
Kolber ends by quoting a fascinating story from Time magazine in 2007, which I didn't catch at the time:
Take a scenario recounted by a US doctor in 2007 (ref. 9). The doctor had biopsied a suspected cancer patient and sent a tissue sample to a pathologist while the woman was still in the operating room. Thinking she was completely sedated, the pathologist announced a bleak prognosis over the intercom.
The patient, who had received only local anaesthesia, heard the news and began to shriek, “Oh my God. My kids!” An anaesthesiologist standing by quickly injected her with propofol, a sedative that causes some people to forget what happened a few minutes before they were injected.
When the woman woke up, she had no memory of hearing her prognosis.
Kolber A (2011). Neuroethics: Give memory-altering drugs a chance. Nature, 476 (7360), 275-6 PMID: 21850084
17 comments:
Where ever the ethical lines are eventually drawn on the use of drugs like this, that last example must surely stand way outside them.
That's absolutely appalling behaviour.
I actually agree that people overblow their traumatic events having any possible redeeming value whatsoever. For the most part, just... no. We would be healthier without knowing torture or horrific closeness to death or war or the loss of children or rape or what the **** ever. People want meaning and so try to assign it to these experience calling it a "journey" or whatever. Basically the only thing you learn from crap like that is exactly how painful it is and how much it should never have happened to begin with and should never happen in the future. Still, I believe that genes themselves use experiences to under stand the environment and to create internal tools to manifest behavioral instincts in the organism and it's descendents from that event occuring again. Removing that information, in that sense, will deprive the organism of that process would could have improved genetic fitness and durability. I believe these types of experiences are already throughout our genetic history--- our early mammilian ancestors knew what it meant to run from dinosaurs!! I think our genes store this. Our genes know. It drops away from being active if the living organism has not recieved any sort of trigger that that gene set will be needed in that in environment, but it's all there. Junk DNA my ass. I think, it's possible, our cells have ways of storing these memories beyond the mechanisms the scientists are going to erase. I believe it's possible that like some people regenerate organs and it makes no sense--- the memories will spontaneously return in some memory. The nature of survival is not to forget. The nature is to know, but to have a buffer. Our brains need a buffer because to know, that itself is pain.
I think the answer is more neuroprotectant, increased ability to withstand painful information, not erasing memory. But when I cure my PTSD I'll let you know how I did it. LOL I will be taking no memory erasing drugs. F* that.
Really nice summary of the ethical dilemma that a lot of people seem to be spending time worrying about. However, perhaps you might write a follow-up post considering whether it will ever be technically possible to isolate the neuronal ensembles specifically relating to a particular memory. If not, I'm not going to worry too much about the ethics for now... :-)
Who we are, our experiences and history is probably a lot more complex than the mind alone or memories for that matter.
Let's say you take a 10 year old rape victim from the Republic of Congo and ask them to interpret their experiences, then inject them with a memory eraser drug. They struggle to eloquently express their thoughts. Was this due to a lack of semantic recall because of no education? A memory eraser is not going to change their environment or remove the scars from their body.
Why not distribute memory enhancer drugs so victims like many who've healed, use their memories to become strong individuals - overcomers, and make the world a better place? I noticed lots of world leaders have a somewhat traumatic past.
We can't escape from the fact we're human, and some humans make heinous mistakes, well, some have no remorse at all. And fate or destiny was such, that some innocent folks suffer the brunt of evil. A memory eraser would be like placing a bandaid on an internally broken, bleeding world.
It's probably not going to do anything except generate pharma dollars, quick fix relationship blunders for the rich, rogue marketing tactics heaped in legal loopholes. Of course the real trauma victims will miss out.
The potential for misuse in the blackmarket/underground circles would far supersede its merit. Like those rape date drugs, weapons - chemical bombs erasing memories?
To erase history is inevitable - it's the kind of society we're becoming - zombies. But I don't think it has to be like that if we can stop power from poisoning humanity towards a style of autonomy validating scores of 'productive' zombies.
As a rescue worker, you choose to do the work. Doing the work is what you've chosen. Experiencing the effects of the memories of the work is not something you've chosen.
That's like saying that a stunt man would choose not to receive medical care for injuries, b/c he'd chosen a dangerous job in order to be injured.
Who are you, basically, to decide about someone else's memories? Why is that different from you deciding about someone else's untreated injuries?
I'm not saying it shouldn't be allowed. But clearly the implications are different, especially if we're talking about memories being totally erased. Would you want to be a firefighter for 20 years and end up with hardly any memories of that because they were mostly traumatic ones? Maybe. but its a bigger step than wiping a memory of a random car crash or mugging. And not just because it's more memories. Being a firefighter is part of your identity; being a car crash victim hopefully not
So deleting the crash helps maintsin your identity.
I am reminded of an episode from the "Sopranos", a cable series that was big in the States about a Mafia family in New Jersey. In the episode, the titular boss, named Uncle Junior, has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's and has been prescribed Aricept to help with his memory. His nephew, Tony, who is the de facto Boss, tells him in a conversation: "Uncle Junior, take your medicine. It will help your memory." Uncle Junior responds: "Believe me, my nephew, I have a lot I would like to forget."
Even if drugs were developed to erase memory, they'd probably wear off eventually. It's like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Parts of your memory are interconnected and because you're only changing memory, not personality, it seems completely plausible that you would repeat a lot of the stuff that you forgot about anyway, which gives you new memories of the same thing.
As someone who has been completely ostracized for whistleblowing every sphere of my life has been destroyed. I have no identity - no social role, no professional role, no family role, no citizen role, etc. I've worked hard not to have memories of my post wb existence, and I can't forget the pre and concurrent wb traumatic pieces. Ergo, I'd be willing to erase memories since my life has literally and virtually been erased by others.
Given that many people are ostracized - bullying, imprisonment and people who are homeless come to mind, I think that this issue needs to be looked at from this point of view for this population. Ostracism historically was used as a death sentence, and it's referred to now as a social death. I can't convey the brutality and cruelty of experiencing this - only to say that it needs to be investigated for what it is and what it does. To my knowledge, there isn't a single therapy or program targeted for people who are ostracized. (Kip Williams and C Fred Alford are the two researchers who have looked at this area)
Two thoughts:
1. I agree with omg - the illegal use of a memory-erasing drug would permit all sorts of new evils to be perpetrated by those who do such things, and would probably out-weigh the benefits of the drug.
2. Constant Writer says you'd just end up repeating the same thing. I think that is a highly credible idea. The memory erasure may only work for the declarative memory (what we can explicitly say we know about an event). It may have no effect on the procedural memory system - unconscious, related to motor memory. Thus, one could imagine a scenario in which a child rape victim is given one of these drugs and "forgets" she was raped. But then acts in ways we so often see in these traumatized patients -- she engages in activities that puts herself in situations that carry significant danger of being sexually assaulted as an adult.
The question is: without declarative memory of a trauma, would such "repetition compulsion" (as the analysts describe it) develop? My suspicion is that it would develop even in the absence of declarative memory. Moreover, how could we know whether such risk-taking behavior in an adult stemmed from "non-forgotten" procedural memories of sexual assault, or were simply part of that person's personality, and would have occurred in the absence of any childhood trauma?
I love scientists.
Aek, you're not living a lie. That's hot. Name me one revolutionary who wasn't ostracized. Courage is immortal. These people change the world.
BDunlop: Yeah, erasing one kind of memory while leaving the others in place could cause no end of problems. Freud would have use believe that that kind of thing is the root of most mental illness. Even if you don't buy that, it's a worry.
I wrote on that topic previously.
People who don't go to sleep at night dreading dreams that may come, and who don't awaken to agonized memories every morning, will not likely understand. The oblivious and sadistic add to that Hell and to the want for this kind of drug.
There seems to be the assumption that wiping out a memory tracer, or even a conscious memory, would erase all that goes along with the memory. The brain is much more complex than this to be the case in my humble opinion, particularly where traumatic experiences are concerned. Multiple structures of the brain are involved in traumatic experiences and all three major components (prefrontal cortex, limbic system, and brain stem) are involved, not to mention the more specific HPA Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal)Axis. One danger might be the conscious memory could be erased, yet all of the biochemical and biological consequences remain. And what science does know about recovery from traumatic life experiences is that it isn't the event that impacts us so much as the ability to make sense out of it. Erase the conscious element of memory and one loses the ability to make sense out of what is causing distressing symptoms.
Basically, the argument that this is a good idea for traumatic events is a poor one at the most pragmatic level, leaving ethics aside.
Reminds me of the movie "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind". A key point of the evolutionary succes of humans is making effectively use of memory (=learning by consequences), this erasing strategy is exactly the opposite direction. Erasing memory is functionally the same as trying to be overly positive while being depressed, taking meds, doing CBT to 'restucture your cognitions', compensate or any other avoidance strategy. Nobody get better with avoidance.
"Given the close connection between memory and a sense of self, some bioethicists...worry that giving people too much power to alter their life stories could ultimately weaken their sense of identity and make their lives less genuine."
As a cognitive therapist I assist clients in 'altering' their life stories and purposefully weakening their identities in order to make their lives MORE genuine. Drugs are not necessary for this process. The question of identity,self and reality must be further discussed.
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