14 DAY TRIAL // Neuroscientists have recently discovered a new brain mechanism that allows for old memories to be erased, so as to make room for additional ones. According to investigators, it could be that experts could soon create drugs to exploit this mechanism, so as to make people forget certain things, such as past experiences that may have left a traumatizing mark on certain individuals. Some, however, fear that the hypothetical new drugs could be also be used for nefarious reasons, such as erasing the memories in “inconvenient people,” by authorities or other interest groups, LiveScience reports.
The investigation has also revealed that the long-term belief holding that forgetting is a passive mechanism in the human brain is outdated and unsubstantiated. The research showed that forgetting things is something that is actively controlled by the brain of each individual. Some scientists argued in the past that short-term memories, for example, are fleeting because they are unstable, and unconsolidated. Others proposed that interferences caused by other, incoming information causes people to dump this type of memories after using them for a short period of time.
Forgetting is apparently not a passive system, but “an active system to erase memory, completely independent from the mechanisms to form memories,” explained Tsinghua University neurogenetics researcher Yi Zhong, who also holds an appointment at the New York-based Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL). The science group Zhong led discovered that a protein called Rac might play a role in erasing memories. In fruit fly experiments, they showed that levels of these molecules increased with the passing of time, suggesting that they were actively involved in the forgetting process.
The scientists mention that when the protein was inhibited, the flies held on to their newly-acquired memories for longer than they otherwise would have. However, the researchers admit that they are still not familiar with all the intricacies related to this process. “By studying what is being erased or altered with this new mechanism, we may be able to identify the material basis of memory,” Zhong says. “We're now developing experiments to see if this also works on long-term memory,” he concludes.