Scientists at the University of California have found that small amounts of anesthetic gas can stop painful memories forming (BBC report). Woop-te-do. We already knew this.
While research into all manner of drugs can tell us a lot about the formation and recall of human memories, simply finding that a drug can inhibit painful memories in the manner this study did is entirely useless. Firstly, the researchers state the study was done to look at how people’s memories are repressed during surgery. The study did not do this: it simply showed that memories were repressed - as we already knew - it did not suggest either a mechanism how this occurs or, more importantly, why it sometimes fails.
Secondly, the study does nothing to advance our knowledge of helping people deal with painful or traumatic memories - since the drug has to be taken whilst the event is taking place to be effective.
Standard talk therapy or hypnosis would seem to be far more practical.
We know almost nothing about the brain. We need to know most, more work needs to be done and is being done. Pointless ’studies’ such as this do nothing but pad people’s resumes. What a waste.
1 comment so far ↓
Sod it.! Bollocks!
I had a beautiful comment all ready to go, about the different types of “sleep” we experience during:
1) sleep induced by general anesthesia during surgery - which admits no conscious memories of the passage of time and could thus be one explanation for the above;
and
2) sleep experienced by most people every night, during which REM sleep may causes dreams which we can recount the next morning, and also that in this type of sleep, we are aware that time has passed. We are aware of time passing because of
a) external light cues (sunshine the next morning)
b) sounds we associate with morning, such as the automatic starter on Mr. Coffee. (When did people become so lazy as to not have the balls to push the little button themselves when they stumble into the kitchen? They’re going to have to come into the kitchen to pour a cup anyways!)
There’s definitely something wrong with that study, as they didn’t differentiate between physical pain (i.e., surgical) and emotional pain (i.e. PTSD).
The theory works in the operating room, but the search goes on for a way to make emotionally painful memories disappear as you are told to count backwards from 100.
I’ve never made it past 95.
Eureka, you don’t remember them shaving your head and drawing a scalpel along the back of your head. You have no idea what time it is when you open you eyes in the recovery room. It feels like you were told to count backwards only seconds ago - that is, once you can think clearly enough to form that abstract thought.
But you can’t make 9/11 disappear from one’s consciousness. If you could, George W. would have been out of a job. We can’t let that happen, can we?
Sorry scientists, nice try. Back to the drawing board.
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