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The Memory Pill (On 60 Minutes)
Just watched an interesting short segment online from the tv show “60 Minutes.” The 4-part segment deals with a drug under study called propanolol, and they frame the segment by means of this simple question, “If you experienced a painful or traumatic event, would you want a pill which could lessen the bad memories of what happened?”
They start with a study of rats in which they explore how adrenaline shots enable rats to learn more effectively. And then compare that to an injection of propanolol which blocks adrenaline and seems to make the rats not remember the simple tasks they previously learned. Since adrenaline is released most strongly during intense fear and stress situations, the idea of the scientists studying this is that if we can modulate the amount of adrenaline in the body, then we can raise or lower the keenness of memories formed during that time.
From there, they jump into post-traumatic stress disorder and speculate that the reason it occurs is that excess amounts of adrenaline make a memory much too real and painful, causing the sufferer to re-live it over and over again. They experiment with giving propanolol to humans who are likely candidates for PTSD, and preliminary findings seem to report that it enables them to more effectively deal with difficult memories.
The final segment deals with the potential for “inappropriate” use of this drug, and the possibility (I’m sorry, I mean certainty) that pharmaceutical companies will want to apply use of this drug as broadly as possible. They even cite a 2003 study by the President’s Council on Bioethics, which concludes that “By ‘rewriting’ memories pharmacologically we might succeed in easing real suffering at the risk of falsifying our perception of the world and undermining our true identity.” Which is, of course, laughable coming from an administration which thrives on falsifying and undermining - but that’s a whole other conversation…
One of the directions they didn’t take this segment in which I would have liked to see would have been the role of inducing stress through advertising, television programming and other media offerings. My idea being here that if they know this, then they also must understand that they can positively (for their purposes anyway) use stressful and fear-inducing situations in order to more effectively “teach” and form memories in people. All they have to do is find simple ways to trigger the release of adrenaline in the body associated with key points they wish to have remembered, and voila!
Which, however, raises an interesting (if conspiratorial) question around the Presidential Bioethics findings: what if “they” didn’t want us to be in control of our memories? Wouldn’t it be in “their” best interest to keep such drugs under wraps so as to prevent people from being able to chemically tune out the controlling signals being broadcast from the mother ship?
Maybe that’s not true though, since the “controllers” of humanity seem to have a rich modern history of administering substances both overtly and covertly within society in order to impact societal change. Why is alcohol not only legal but promoted - because it has a tendency to deaden us to the world, if used to excess? In a lot of ways, its not so radically different from a drug like propanolol after all.
But I do like one of the points raised in the “60 Minutes” segments and the Presidential report regardless: that our negative experiences make us who we are. Imagine for a moment if you could erase every “bad” thing that ever happened to you. Would you still be who you are? Or do we simply cling too tightly to our negative self-image and memories as it is? Would we be a lot happier medicated into infinity?
I started a scienc-fiction story a while ago on this topic, but never finished it: what if they released a “nirvana pill” - one which somehow chemically withered away the “experiencer” within you, but which otherwise left your personality etc relatively untouched? I’m not sure how a first-person telling of such a story would work, but from the outside looking in, it would seem that the person had committed covert emotional suicide - which would be socially more acceptable to the violent kind, since it enabled them to remain being a productive member of society, possibly even moreso since their pesky hang-ups were all washed away.
In any event, this is a really interesting subject matter - one which I suspect will have even greater importance as our range and depth of ability to chemically and technologically modify our states of consciousness reaches its apex.
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November 29th, 2006 at 5:43 pm
Star Trek V: The final frontier dealt with a person (Spock’s half brother) who had the ability to effectively remove instantaneously (or work through) depending on your interpretation, a person’s painful memories. It actually is I think the best Star Trek movie, and recall that it was also roughly an episode from the original series.
Spocks brother is portrayed as a controller and he is able to control subjects he “frees” from their painful memories, but it seems from what we know of people who are able to deal with past trauma they are more autonomous not less. It is interesting to watch because the arguement is made that our painful memories help make us who we are, but the question is, and you see how when people break free from their painful memories, are possibly now “happy”, how little they are invested in maintaining the status quo. Star Trek being very hieracrhial/militaristic you can imagine how it would serve their purpose not to have people get over their hangups.
I wonder about the underlying effects of trying to block out painful memories, I’ve heard that people who have minor surgery without anethesia are able to heal quicker because they are more aware, maybe their is a similiar thing with emotional trauma. It seems most people who suffer from PTSD do so because they dissociated during the traumatic event, not because they were uber-aware.
November 29th, 2006 at 6:05 pm
difficult to say whether dissociation during an event makes it any less traumatic. i utilise a form of dissociation in client sessions as a way of dealing with fears and phobias, which allows people to run through fearful or phobic scenarios without the emotional reactions, like handling spiders or experiencing flying or public speaking. the difference is that i`m present during the sessions and the client knows this and understands that the session can end when they choose……that`s not so in real life.
regarding the drug. it doesn`t selectively deal with one memory, it effects the archetecture of the brain function that provides access to memory period.
emotional suicide.
robots.
bad thing.
November 29th, 2006 at 6:14 pm
hmm…my first thought goes to the war. Maybe this is some kind of social coping mechanism for the inevitable domestic aftermath of the Iraq war that we’re going to be seeing within the very near future. We’re going to have thousands of military people back from Iraq with PTSD….the PTB remember the post vietnam war 1970’s. I think they’re interested in making sure that doesn’t happen again.
A media-drenched environment such as the one we currently live in, and the recent here’s-shit-in-your-eye the GOP received earlier this month, is going to mean that GIs will be able to share their experiences without worrying about what anyone has to say about it. I can’t imagine too many vets suffering from PTSD are going to have good things to say. I’d imagine that this drug is just as much for the people that won’t need to take it as it is for the people that will.
Or maybe it’s not that angle at all. Maybe it’s going to be the next ephedrine or whatever speedy drug you prefer from the literal horde of speedy drugs that seemed to dominate a few years ago. Maybe it’s going to end up as a commonly abused drug…used by anyone and everyone to “get over” a shitty event, even if that event is some LA socialite’s hissy fit over losing her car keys.
“Maybe that’s not true though, since the “controllers” of humanity seem to have a rich modern history of administering substances both overtly and covertly within society in order to impact societal change. Why is alcohol not only legal but promoted - because it has a tendency to deaden us to the world, if used to excess? In a lot of ways, its not so radically different from a drug like propanolol after all.”
Maybe this is what made me think of vets and the war…and how so many vets after vietnam became alcoholics. “Alcoholism” seems…..not fancy enough?…for our current times. Kinda inadequate, even. It’s almost as if the present state of things demands scientific progression even for inebriation/chemically assisted coping.
November 29th, 2006 at 6:36 pm
I’m usually the first person to see the nefarious side of things, especially anything involving pharmaceutical companies…but living in post-k new orleans, I think this drug could have a definite use. Of course the ideal would be processing your experiences to a point where you can live with them, but some people just can’t handle that at this moment, and a whole bunch have committed suicide down here this year. 9/11 was the same, although not as bad. I mean, simple breathing techniques can help people deal more than any drug, imho, but some people just aren’t at that point, and sadly, a lot of us trust pills more than our own resources.
November 29th, 2006 at 9:33 pm
Tim,
I am the last person to be a nit picker but I think you have your drugs confused.
Unless I am mistaken propanolol is not the drug they are speaking about.
I didnt see the video but I am intimately famliar with propanolol. As some of you might know from my posts ’round here I am an ER nurse (RN) of ten years experience and have given alot of propanolol in my time. It is a heart rythm regulator (a beta blocker) that also lowers blood pressure. It has a mild relaxing effect and is occassionally given to treat anxiety.
I suspect the medication you are speaking of is Diprivan or Propofol by its generic. It sounds alot like propanolol but they are two different beasts. Propofol is given to patients to “knock them out” and keep them out. It is an unusual drug in that it must be emulsified to be injected so as to avoid an allergic reaction and crosses the blood brain barrier in an unusual manner. I have experimented with it myself and can say it is most unusual; it has some endocannaboid effects. But this is strong strong stuff that causes irresistible unconciousness and transient apnea. NOT TO BE TAKEN LIGHTLY AND NOT A PARTY DRUG.
November 30th, 2006 at 2:54 am
Well, I dont know what to tell you. That’s the drug they are referencing on that page and in the video! Here’s an excerpt from their page:
November 30th, 2006 at 3:13 am
Wow, you are right. We are all talking about the same medication. I had not heard that this common medication had any other, (especially mysterious), uses.
November 30th, 2006 at 2:48 pm
Perhaps it is an initiative by the makers of this drug to expand their markets into new areas? Fund some scientists to see what creative uses they can come up with for it, generate a media buzz, and there you go… Simple business.
November 30th, 2006 at 2:50 pm
i highly, highly recommend “The Futurological Congress” by Stanislaw Lem, which addresses these very issues (and is also one of the most “Gnostic” books I’ve ever read). Here are a few excerpts from some Amazon reviews:
November 30th, 2006 at 3:50 pm
Imagine what might happen to someone coming off this drug. A sudden surge in adrenaline, and all those horrible memories flooding back with full force.
Sometimes I think these guys get off on creating problems that only further drugging can handle. Like prescribing methadone for heroin addiction. Sick, sick, sick, sick, sick.
November 30th, 2006 at 3:58 pm
I’m 100% with you on that one!
December 1st, 2006 at 11:57 am
Not a very enlightening comment from me (as usual) but the above comment reminds me of the TV show Arrested Development (funny shit) where they go into segments / flashbacks where the Dad used to teach the kids an important “lesson” by creating a little scenario where his friend in cahoots would somehow (he used it on more than one occasion) lose an arm in front of the kids as a result of their behaviour, shocking the living crap out of them and impressing the lesson.