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Health and medicine

In works: a pill that fades bad memories

Suppose you could erase bad memories from your mind. Suppose, as in a recent movie, your brain could be wiped clean of sad and traumatic thoughts.

That is science fiction. But real-world scientists are working on the next best thing. They have been testing a pill that, when given after a traumatic event like rape, may make the memories less painful and intense.

Will it work? It is too soon to say. Still, it is not far-fetched that this drug someday might be passed out along with blankets and food at emergency shelters after disasters like the tsunami or Hurricane Katrina.

Victims of such events sometimes develop post-traumatic stress disorder, a problem first recognized in Vietnam War veterans. Only 14 percent to 24 percent of trauma victims experience the disorder long-term, but sufferers have flashbacks and symptoms that make them feel as if they are reliving the trauma years after it occurred.

Scientists say they think it happens because the brain goes haywire during and right after a strongly emotional event, pouring out stress hormones that help store these memories in a different way than normal ones are preserved.

Taking a drug to tamp down these chemicals might blunt memory formation and prevent the disorder, they theorize.

"I don't think there's yet in our country a sense of urgency about post-traumatic stress disorder" but there should be, said James McGaugh, director of the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory at the University of California at Irvine.

[Last modified January 15, 2006, 01:48:18]