What?
The military is apparently researching amnesia beams as a treatment for PTSD … and probably other useful applications … and scientists have already succeeded in making mice forget things. Danger Room rounds up military and civilian efforts:
A team of scientists from the United States and China announced last week that, for the first time, they had found a means of selectively and safely erasing memories in mice, using the signaling molecule αCaMKII. It’s a big step forward, and one that will be of considerable interest to the military, which has devoted efforts to memory manipulation as a means of treating post-traumatic stress disorder. But some military research has moved in another direction entirely.
In the 1980s, researchers found that even low-level exposure to a beam of electrons caused rats to forget what had just happened to them (an effect known as retrograde amnesia — the other version, anteretrograde amnesia, is when you can’t form new memories). The same effect was also achieved with X-rays. The time factor was not large — it only caused memory loss about the previous four seconds — but the effect was intriguing.
One theory was that the amnesia was a result of the brilliant flash experienced when the electron beam struck the retina. And, indeed, it turned out that it is possible to produce amnesia in rodents using a flash of light …
The rest here. One note. The collaboration between Brain & Behavior Discovery Institute at the Medical College of Georgia School of Medicine and East China Normal University in Shanghai makes me wonder what the Chinese are so eager to help people forget.
Also, instead of hitting people’s retinas with electron beams, pointy-headed scientists may want to explore the BDS factor and try just flashing pictures of George Bush. You wouldn’t believe what kind of horrors that can make people forget. Some kinks to work out … they start imagining all kinds of other things.
Welcome LGF, etal. Always so good to see. You think that’s weird science? Check this out. Some Brits made a disturbingly realistic robot that looks and talks suspiciously like me. And they called it Jules.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:18 am on Friday, October 31, 2008
2 Responses to “What?”
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October 31st, 2008 at 4:07 pm
Once again science fiction (even goofy science fiction) leads the way.
November 2nd, 2008 at 10:36 am
“even low-level exposure to a beam of electrons”… You mean like sitting in front of a TV?
I tell my kids all the time that sitting in front of the TV for so long is making them stupid. I apparently am correct. ;-)
Anyway, I would be happy to be a test subject… I have a feeling that after Nov 4th, I am going to want to forget.