>On Wed, 18 Jan 2006 13:33:28 -0800, Scott Lilienfeld wrote: > >My understanding is that Rick is correct; this pill, if efficacious, >would not literally eradicate the memory, just make it less distressing. >See also the following piece in the NY Times magazine section from >Spring, 2004: > >http://www.mindfully.org/Health/2004/Drugs-Prevent-Memories4apr04.htm
I'd like to thank both Scott and Rick for their responses but I have to admit to still being somewhat confused about this issue. Below is a quote from the article that Scott refers to: |Scientists who work with patients who suffer from post-traumatic |stress disorder see the matter quite differently. As a result, they |are defending and developing a new science that can be called |therapeutic forgetting. True post-traumatic stress can be intractable |and does not tend to respond to most therapies. So these scientists |are bucking the current trend in memory research, which is to find |a drug or a gene that will help people remember. They are, instead, |trying to help people forget. "Therapeutic forgetting" sounds somewhat different from what I would call "emotional dampening" (i.e., reducing an anxiety response associated with a traumatic memory) -- it sounds like eradicating memories to me. A subsequent quote also seems to support this view: |When stress hormones like adrenaline and norepinephrine are |elevated, new memories are consolidated more firmly, which is |what makes the recollection of emotionally charged events so |vivid, so tenacious, so strong. If these memories are especially |bad, they take hold most relentlessly, and a result can be the |debilitating flashbacks of post-traumatic stress disorder. Interfering |with stress hormone levels by giving propranolol soon after the |trauma, according to Pitman's hypothesis, could keep the |destructive memories from taking hold. He doesn't expect |propranolol to affect nonemotional memories, which don't |depend on stress hormones for their consolidation, but he |said it could possibly interfere with the consolidation of highly |emotional positive memories as well as negative ones. It would seem that one shouldn't try falling in love while on propranolol because one wouldn't remember it. All in all, I am somewhat skeptical about the simplicity of propranolol's effects. -Mike Palij New York University [EMAIL PROTECTED] >...Scott > >Rick Froman wrote: > >Mike Palij wrote: >>IMHO, it seems more reasonable to >>be able to access and reflect on the memory but with >>a reduced emotional response (which seems to be the >>goal of current psychotherapies). -------------------------------------- > >I think, despite some confusing surrounding the issue, that that is what >the treatment they are investigating does. As I understand it, (and some >of the discussions of it are as clear as mud on this point), it doesn't >necessarily remove the memory, it just removes the maladaptive emotional >responses associated with the memory. [snip] --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: archive@jab.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
