Can cure cocaine addiction when erasing painful memories

Speaking at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston, Dr. Josselyn said it was possible to treat people with post-traumatic stress disorder by erasing painful memories.

The team led by Dr. Josselyn succeeded in both activities - activating and deleting fear memories in the mice that participated in the experiment.

Researchers believe that this method can be used to cure cocaine addiction.

According to BT, previous studies have shown that in the process of creating memories, nerve cells are activated in some way. Now, scientists at the University of Toronto (Canada) have discovered that some neurons compete with each other to be involved in the formation of terrible memories. Of the millions of brain neurons, only a few are needed to form a memory associated with fear or memory of a threatened situation.

In tests, experts increased levels of a protein found in the brains of mice. Thus, neurons can be found with unpleasant memories. When the researchers removed those neurons, the mice got rid of painful memories, and other memories were unaffected.

Scientists say eliminating unhappy memories can have negative consequences for everyone. In particular, people may not be able to draw lessons from their previous mistakes. However, researchers believe that this method can be used to cure cocaine addiction. Accordingly, just erase the refreshing memories of the use of drugs is enough.