Traumatic Memories Could Be Made to Fade Away

A group of investigators with the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) announces a discovery that could have significant implications for people who have experienced various forms of abuse, in the sense that these individuals could have their harmful memories weakened.

The work now being conducted at the university could result in the development of a neural intervention method, that would literally weaken the intensity of negative memories, or maybe even remove them from one's mind entirely.

This could be of tremendous use for people at high risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) for example, such as victims of rape or abuse, war veterans and people who were unfortunate enough to witness violent crimes.

Details of the new approach currently being pioneered at UCLA appear in a paper published in the April 27 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience. The senior author of the work was UCLA cellular neuroscientist David Glanzman.

“I think we will be able to alter memories someday to reduce the trauma from our brains,” says the expert, who is a professor of integrative biology, physiology and neurobiology at the university.

During experiments he and his team conducted, the expert managed to significantly diminish the intensity of negative memories in the marine snail Aplysia, as well as in human neurons grown in a Petri dish culture.

In some cases, the memories were eliminated altogether. Glanzman explains that such advancements are only made possible by breakthroughs in our understanding of the cellular biology underlying long-term memory formation.

“Almost all the processes that are involved in memory in the snail also have been shown to be involved in memory in the brains of mammals,” the investigator says. He adds that current technology levels do not allow the direct study of such process in the human brain.

The UCLA team found that the negative memories can be eliminated by inhibiting the actions of a molecule called PKM (protein kinase M), which previous studies determined is associated with memory. PKM is a part of the protein kinase C (PKC) class.

“We found that if we inhibit PKM in the marine snail, we will erase the memory for long-term sensitization. In addition, we can erase the long-term change at a single synapse that underlies long-term memory in the snail,” the UCLA expert concludes.