Is It Possible to Erase Drug Addiction Memories
For the drug addict, old memories are hard to let go. They keep coming back to haunt, taunt and coax the user into the same self-destructive behavior. How can you combat this? Is there such a thing as being able to just wipe them out – erase them?
When it comes to cocaine, a drug that’s been abused since the end of the 19th century, scientists are eager to discover if this is really possible.
Study to Reduce Drug-Seeking Behavior
Researchers at the University of Cambridge may have found a way. By blocking a brain chemical receptor important to learning and memory during recall of drug-associated memories, the researchers were able to reduce drug-seeking behavior in test rats. The study, conducted in 2008 and reported in The Journal of Neuroscience (August 2008), shows that disruption or erasing of memories can prevent memories from triggering drug taking or relapse.
How the Study Worked
Rats were trained first to associate a light going on with cocaine. Then rats were exposed to the light, which reactivated their cocaine memories – minus any cocaine. Scientists even created additional tasks the rats needed to perform in order to turn on the light – and the rats continued to perform.
The next part of the study involved the introduction of a chemical that interferes with the action of the NDMA-type glutamate receptor – that plays an important part in memory – prior to their reactivation session. Once the test rats were given the chemical, the result was reduced cocaine-seeking behavior. With only one treatment, the rats’ drug-seeking behavior was reduced or even stopped for up to 4 weeks.
When researchers blocked the receptors after or with no reactivating session, however, there was no effect on their subsequent drug-seeking behavior. The researchers concluded that it is possible to disrupt drug-associated memories during reconsolidation of memories – but not after.
Outlook for the Future
What does this mean for the future? Researchers hope that drugs can be developed to give to addicts in a clinical or controlled environment to reactivate their strongest drug memories. By utilizing such treatments, researchers believe that drug memories would be diminished in the future, while also helping drug addicts become more resistant to relapse and maintain their abstinence.
So, there’s not yet a drug that can pitch those drug-associated memories into the trash-bin, but there is hope that someday soon there will be.
