Memory Eraser

Now the Mistress has seen it all! If there were something you could take after experiencing a painful traumatic event that would permanently weaken your memory of what happened would you take it? It's a idea not so far off.

Propranolol is a drug that (among other things) seems to erase link between intense emotional events and the memory. Doctors hope to treat patients suffering from post-traumatic stress victims of war, rape, accidents, or witnessing a murder. The man who discovered this is James McGaugh a professor of neurobiology at the University of California,Irvine. McGaugh says that why we remember important and emotional events in our lives, and regular day to day experiences, the next step is to research to see what would happen when the adrenaline was blocked by experimenting with the pill propranolol. Propranolol sits on the nerve cell and blocks it. Adrenaline can be present, but it can't do it's job of bring up the memory.

Later this summer McGaugh and another doctor, Dr. Roger Pitman from Harvard Medical School will be continuing the push of research. And now the US military has taken note. Dr Pitman will be receiving Army funding this summer to try the same propranolol experiment done with his subjects, to treat American soldiers returning from Afghanistan and Iraq.

Although this sounds good in some cases, the Mistress can't help but wonder, could it be bad? Our experiences-good or bad make us who we are. Also, while the pill erases bad memories, could it also erase good ones? And what happens if someone would over dose? Would it erase if they even knew who they were? What are your thoughts?