Memories could be physically erased to treat chronic pain and the echoes of traumatic events, some of Britain’s leading brain scientists have predicted.
Tim Bliss, of the Francis Crick Institute in London, said that it was theoretically possible that researchers would one day work out how to implant people with false memories, such as a recollection of having slept with Marilyn Monroe.
Yesterday he was one of three eminent British researchers to share the €1 million (£780,000) Brain Prize, nicknamed the Nobel of neuroscience, alongside Graham Collingridge, professor of neuroscience in anatomy at the University of Bristol, and Richard Morris, professor of neuroscience at the University of Edinburgh. They won for tracing how memories form as the links between brain cells gradually strengthen through repeated firing. It is the first time that the award has been given to a group of scientists from the UK.
In work that started in the 1960s these scientists have painstakingly demonstrated that the connections between these cells, known as synapses, become firmer the more they are used in the area of the brain where memories coalesce, thanks to a protein known as NMDA receptor.
As well as casting light on one of the greatest mysteries of the relationship between mind and body their findings have contributed to the development of a widely prescribed drug for Alzheimer’s disease, memantine.
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The researchers said they expected that their work would be the basis for treatments capable of alleviating the symptoms of the condition, especially in its early stages, by helping the brain to form new circuits.
Professor Bliss, who made the first significant breakthrough in understanding the formation of memories as a postdoctoral neuroscientist at the University of Oslo 50 years ago, said that science was much closer to a detailed explanation of how we learn and remember than to cracking problems such as consciousness or perception.
This in theory could give researchers the power to alter and even create memories. “Memory is one of the essential faculties of mind which we will eventually understand more or less completely,” he said. “I think we’ve got a pretty good handle now on what happens. If that is the case then the question does become possible: could we instil memories we didn’t actually have? We sometimes call it the Marilyn Monroe experiment. I was alive when Marilyn Monroe was alive, I could have met her, I could have spent some time with her — maybe I did. Maybe I could go to the synapse surgeon and say, ‘Please instil in me a memory of the night I spent with Marilyn.’ In theory that’s possible. In practice, we can’t do it now, but I’m not saying that could never happen.”
More immediate is the prospect of using our maps of the fundamental structures of memory to make up for traumatic events that cause people mental and physical pain. Scientists have already found ways to switch off basic memories that make male mice fearful of fraternising with females.
Professor Collingridge said that drugs could be used to rework human memories in a similar way. “Whilst many memories are good, there are memories which are bad. Classic examples would be post-traumatic stress disorder or chronic pain, which is a form of memory: it’s a memory of a painful event which is no longer serving a protective purpose.
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“There’s very good evidence now that we can start to erase memories pharmacologically by using drugs.”