Putting little slices of your brain down the memory hole

ABC News: Erasing the Pain of the Past :
"But in their early efforts to understand the way in which short-term memories become long-term memories, researchers have discovered that certain drugs can interrupt that process. Those same drugs, they believe, can also be applied not just in the immediate aftermath of a traumatic event — like a mortar attack, rape or car accident — but years later, when an individual is still haunted by memories of event."

The idea is to spare people the pain of remembering traumatic events. Despite the notion being condemned by the president's bioethics advisory panel, the National Institutes of Health is funding research along these lines. The article points to a government interest in helping veterans to deal with battle trauma.

One study mentioned in the article I find particularly troubling. It involves giving persons involved in auto crashes a drug or placebo during emergency room treatment. While this has the virtue for the researchers of administering the drug before the memory of the crash can be consolidated in the victims' memories, what happens when they later need to explain the event to their insurance company or the police?

As with many stories in the newspapers, especially those that deal with the government, the most interesting bit involves the elephant standing in the corner. No one ever mentions the elephant, but he is there just as big as life. In this story, the elephant is all the work the government has been funding in this field going back almost half a century.

Remember that LSD came from government research in chemically altering the mind. I once read that there was some suspicion that the Unabomber had been a test subject during his student days in Cambridge. The informed speculation is that the intelligence community would like to be able to erase memories of agents so that they cannot later be successfully interrogated if they fall into enemy custody. Perhaps they already can.

Suppose this work succeeds. It is a small step from helping people deal with debilitating psychological problems to eliminating inconvenient witnesses without the mess and bother of assassination. Big Brother is watching.