Bad memories could become a thing of the past as new research has solved a problem that hindered advances in targeted memory deletion.



The research, by a team of scientists from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel could lead to more effective treatments for a host of psychological traumas.



Research into memory erasure has yielded inconclusive results, but the team, headed by neurobiologist Yadin Dudai, claims to have identified a new principle guiding the brain’s memory systems that could allow people to accurately wipe out bad memories.

We don’t remember everything. The things that we do remember are accessible because the memories have been consolidated.



Memory consolidation occurs immediately after a memory is acquired.



It was once thought to be a permanent process in which a memory could not be erased.



Recent evidence, however, suggests that a window of disruption exists for a short period — about an hour or two — after each time a memory is recalled.



This means that immediately after recalling a memory, a “memory eraser” could wipe it out, even though years may have passed since its formation.



New principle



Research into this phenomenon has taken place around the world, but results have been inconclusive because in some cases it was possible to erase old memories upon recall while in others it wasn’t.



Dudai and colleagues have now discovered a new principle that helps resolve the confusion: Only dominant memories can be deleted by memory erasers.



Dominant memories are those that elicit a reaction based on all of the associations that we have with them.



For example, a food can conjure both pleasant or unpleasant memories, which can be remembered in pleasant or unpleasant contexts. But only one of the memories — the dominant one — will dictate whether or not we will eat the food.



This finding dictates the conditions in which a memory can be erased.



Rats and fish



Dudai and his colleagues used rats and fish to test their theory.



The rats were tested in remembering flavors, the fish in remembering flashes of light.



For the rats, taste was sometimes good, sometimes bad. For the fish, light flashes sometimes signaled danger, sometimes didn’t.



With both animals, the dominant memories were the only ones that could be erased by administering a drug a few minutes following memory recall.



Although relevant studies have not yet been conducted, Dudai is confident that certain drugs will be effective in eliminating unwanted memories in humans.
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