Can you erase memories

In deliberately trying to forget the words, they had discarded the context in which they had memorized them. In addition, the greater the detachment from the context, the fewer words they remembered. This suggests that we can intentionally forget. The findings could be useful for helping people either to remember things, for example, when studying, or to reduce unwanted memories, for example, in treating PTSD. Treatment for people with phobias includes exposure to the item that causes fear.

While this works temporarily, the fear often returns in time. In August , researchers from Uppsala University and Karolinska Institutet in Sweden showed that disrupting a memory can reduce its strength. In their experiment, people who were afraid of spiders were exposed to pictures of their eight-legged friends in three sessions. The aim was to disrupt the memory by disturbing it and then resetting it. Then, 10 minutes later, the participants viewed the images for longer. The next day, they saw the pictures again.

By the third viewing, the researchers noticed that there was less activity in the part of the brain known as the amygdala. This reflected a lower level of emotional interference and a lesser tendency in the participants to avoid spiders.

The scientists concluded that the first exposure made the memory unstable. When the longer exposure occurred, the memory was re-saved in a weaker form. This, they say, stops the fear from returning so easily. The researchers believe that this could strengthen techniques for dealing with anxiety and phobias in cases where exposure alone does not provide a long-term solution. To complement cognitive approaches, some scientists have suggested using drugs to remove bad memories or the fear-inducing aspect that is associated with them.

In one study , people with a fear of heights took D-cycloserine before a virtual reality exposure therapy. One week, and again 3 months later, their stress levels were lower than before. In other research , when a group of people with PTSD took propranolol at the time of consolidating a memory, for example, just after recounting a bad experience, they had fewer stress symptoms the next time the memory was activated.

Researchers in New York carried out tests on rats that showed it is possible to erase single memories from the brain, by delivering a drug known as U, while leaving the rest of the brain intact. In a mouse study published in Nature in , scientists used a drug known as an HDACi to erase epigenetic markers in the DNA that enable bad memories to live on.

This could help people, for example, with PTSD. She starts, she says, by telling someone that when they were young, they committed a crime, then adding layers of information until the person can no longer decipher reality from imagination. Shaw says she does this to highlight how some interrogation methods can be abused. Healthy people could use them to erase an inconvenient event from the mind.

Perpetrators of crimes could give memory-erasing drugs to people to make them forget events. Psychiatrists will often prescribe this medication off-label. You can inquire about local psychiatrists in your area and see if they use this treatment protocol in their practices.

Memory is the process in which your mind records, stores, and recalls information. It is an extremely complex process that is still not well understood.

Many theories about how different aspects of memory work are still unproven and debated. Researchers do know that there are several different types of memory, all of which depend on a complex network of neurons you have about billion located in many different parts of your brain. The first step in memory creation is the recording of information into the short-term memory.

Researchers have known for several decades that this process of encoding new memories relies heavily on a small area of the brain called the hippocampus. Sometimes though, your brain flags particular pieces of information as important and worthy of being transferred into long-term storage through a process called memory consolidation.

It is widely recognized that emotion plays a major role in this process. For decades, researchers believed that consolidation was a one-time thing. Once you stored a memory, it would always be there. Recent research , however, has proven that this is not the case.

Think of a particular memory like a sentence on a computer screen. Every time you recall a memory you have to rewrite that sentence, firing specific neurons in a specific order, as if typing out the words. This is a process known as reconsolidation. Sometimes, when you type too fast, you make mistakes, changing a word here or there. Your brain can also make mistakes when it is reconstructing a memory. During the reconstruction process your memories become malleable, which means it is possible to adjust or manipulate them.

Certain techniques and medications can exploit the reconsolidation process, effectively removing, for example, the feelings of fear associated with a particular memory.

It is generally understood that people remember emotional memories more vividly than boring memories. If a memory comes up that you'd rather not remember, remind yourself that it's something that happened in the past—it isn't actually happening now.

Related wikiHows How to. How to. Clinical Psychologist. Expert Interview. More References 1. About This Article. Co-authored by:. Co-authors: Updated: September 16, Categories: Featured Articles Letting Go. Medical Disclaimer The content of this article is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, examination, diagnosis, or treatment. Article Summary X To purposefully forget things, start by making a list of the memories you want to forget and what bothers you about them.

Italiano: Dimenticare Volontariamente le Cose. Nederlands: Vergeten. Bahasa Indonesia: Melupakan dengan Sengaja. Thanks to all authors for creating a page that has been read 2,, times.

Thanks to whoever made this. More reader stories Hide reader stories. Did this article help you? Cookies make wikiHow better. By continuing to use our site, you agree to our cookie policy. Luca Lacaran Nov 2.

Jahan Nagpal Sep 9. Skylar Tipp Dec 10, I feel like a weight has been lifted off it. Your air feels cleaner and it's easier to breathe and process.

You feel like you're ready to start a new day and you're ready to face anything! Anonymous Jul 2, Re-examining the issues in life and the positive approaches this article provides has enabled my mind to move on from the harassment. I did decide to forgive the idiot. Hold no grudges.

Feel better! Anonymous Mar 8, However, you have the opportunity to go out and make new memories that will surely overlook and replace the old ones. Share yours! More success stories Hide success stories. By signing up you are agreeing to receive emails according to our privacy policy. But what many people don't realise is that those long-term memories aren't stable. In fact, every time we revisit a memory, that memory becomes malleable again, and is reset stronger and more vividly than before.

This process is known as reconsolidation, and it explains why our memories can sometimes change slightly over time - for example, if you fell off your bike, each time you remember it and get upset about it, you're restrengthening the connections between that memory and emotions such as fear and sadness.

Eventually just the thought of a bike could be enough to make you terrified. Alternatively, most of us have had the experience of a once-traumatic memory becoming laughable years later. The reconsolidation process is so important, because it's a point at which scientists can step in and 'hack' our memories. Numerous studies have now shown that by blocking a chemical called norepinephrine - which is involved in the fight or flight response and is responsible for triggering symptoms such as sweaty palms and a racing heart - researchers can 'dampen' traumatic memories, and stop them being associated with negative emotions.

For example, at the end of last year, researchers from the Netherlands demonstrated they could take away arachnophobes' fear of spiders by using a drug called propranolol to block norepinephrine. To figure this out, the team took three groups of arachnophobes.

Two of these groups were shown a tarantula in a glass jar to trigger their fearful memories of spiders, and were then either given propranolol or a placebo.