Presenting the Memory Cleansing Drug

Wow! Is this real man? Science really doesn't know any bounds, does it? I don't know how many of you have seen Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but it very well seems that the science-fiction drama may become a stark reality in the days to come.

In the most brilliant movie mentioned above starring the beautiful Kate Winslet and the equally wonderful Jim Carrey, both of them portray a couple who undergo a medical procedure to erase each other from their memories when their relationship turns sour. The scientists at Friedrich Miescher Institute in Switzerland have done something remarkably similar. They have developed (at least theoretically) a memory-cleansing drug that has the ability to remove any recollection of unhappy or embarrassing incidents, like childhood teasing or upsetting memories of a failed love affair. Pretty exciting, huh?

During the successful animal trials, the animals were given a drug that dissolves a barrier around amygdala - the almond-shaped organ in the brain where mammals store their memories of fear. It was found that after receiving the drug, the animals stopped being scared of sounds linked to electric shocks, indicating the memories had been erased. Homo sapiens share the same organ which can another way of saying that the drug can work on humans too.

Another big achievement of medical science, but aren't mistakes and unhappy memories the single biggest reason why we learn? With all our memories of our mistakes, our hard earned wisdom might go too, and our ability to learn and store.