Forget Accurate Reports of New Discoveries on Memory

August 30, 2006

A trio of articles this week on how the brain may form and maintain memories in the journal Science has led certain news outlets to jump to conclusions about the nature of the human brain and our present ability to manipulate it.

For example, PhysOrg.com is announcing that scientists have found the “memory molecule,” and these studies demonstrate that we “can erase long-term memories . . . that had been stored for one day, or even one month . . . as you might erase a computer disc.” The article neglects to mention, however, that the studies only involved rats, not humans, and were therefore limited to the rats’ abilities to remember spatial relations (such as learning to avoid a painful shock).

Since a rat cannot communicate to researchers what it does or doesn’t remember from yesterday or last month, evidence that memories can be selectively erased is, at best, inconclusive and circumstantial. These articles in Science only show that (1) rats use a certain area of their brains (the hippocampus) to remember spatial information, and (2) inhibiting a critical enzyme in this region can destroy these learned relations. We know that humans also use their hippocampi in similar ways, though it remains to be seen what this inhibitor would do to our own memories – spatial or otherwise.

Meanwhile, claims about turning our brains into selectively re-writable media through biotechnology are mere speculation. Considering Mayo Clinic found in 2003 that 1 in every 5 news articles on neurological conditions misrepresent or exaggerate the studies they cite, such hyperbole probably shouldn’t come as a surprise. While these discoveries do open up the possibility of a real Lacuna Inc. someday, much more research – and ethical debate – will need to take place before then.

Update on 8/31 by Eric Spaulding: For anyone interested, I just found this article from The Scientist which explains the importance of these discoveries without all the hype.