Found a way to erase bad memories

A person can survive what happened to him in the past, a tragedy again.

Neuroscientists from Columbia University in the US and McGill University in Canada have found a method for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder. According to the findings of scientists, the bad memories are formed through specific neural processes. If the influence of these processes, it is possible to get rid of constant worries.

A person can survive what happened to him in the past, a tragedy again, seeing something by accident is associated with bad events (random-associative memory). For example, if he was robbed in a dark alley, where stood a mailbox, the latter becomes a cause (trigger) a new alarm. It is believed that this is due to weak incentives generated by the surrounding environment and captures the long-term memory where they are combined with more powerful signals entering through a different neural circuit.

The results of the previous research works have shown that both types of stimuli cause are indistinguishable from each other changes in the nerve cells. It is therefore considered that it is impossible to affect random-associative memory using drugs, without damaging the associative memory. The past is important to people in the future could avoid potentially dangerous places or situations. However, other experts believed that the mechanisms responsible for different types of memories, various.

The object of the study neuroscientists used an animal model — the marine mollusc Aplysia (Aplysia). Scientists stimulated two different sensory neurons of animals associated with motor neuron, so that one participated in the formation of associative memory and the other nonassociative. It turned out that in one case the strength of the synapse (connection between neurons) was determined proteins the classical form of the kinase, and the other atypical kinases.

Selective blocking of classical kinase prevented the formation of a nonassociative memory. According to scientists, vertebrates, including man, there are similar mechanisms that will allow us to develop drugs that will block the triggers that cause re-experiencing.

paradox