Hi Joe, whatcha know?
Hang onto that Au
We're in for a rollercoaster of an economy you know.
The DOD jumped right on this stuff you know.



-=> JOE BRUCHIS wrote to ALL <=-

 JB> Erasing the Pain of the Past
 JB> Scientists Are Developing Drugs That Could Eliminate Traumatic Events
 JB> From Our Memories

 JB> ABC News | March 20, 2007
 JB> RUSSELL GOLDMAN

 JB> March 20, 2007 - - "I'd take it in a second," said Sgt. Michael
 JB> Walcott, an Iraq War veteran, referring to an experimental drug with
 JB> the potential to target and erase traumatic memories.

 JB> Walcott, who served in a Balad-based transportation unit that regularly
 JB> took mortar fire, now suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder.
 JB> Since returning to the United States two years ago, he has been on
 JB> antidepressants and in group therapy as he tries to put his life back
 JB> together and heal from the psychological scars of war. "There are
 JB> moments," he said, "when you just want be alone and don't
want to deal
 JB> with everyone telling you that you've changed."

 JB> There are many others like Walcott. The Army estimates that one in
 JB> eight soldiers returning home from Iraq suffers from post-traumatic
 JB> stress disorder. Symptoms of the disorder, once known as shell shock,
 JB> include flashbacks, nightmares, feelings of detachment, irritability,
 JB> trouble concentrating and sleeplessness.

 JB> Much about why painful memories come back to haunt soldiers and those
 JB> who live through other traumatic experiences remains unknown.
 JB> Scientists say that is because little is known about how the brain
 JB> stores and recalls memories.

 JB> But in their early efforts to understand the way in which short-term
 JB> memories become long-term memories, researchers have discovered that
 JB> certain drugs can interrupt that process. Those same drugs, they
 JB> believe, can also be applied not just in the immediate aftermath of a
 JB> traumatic event - like a mortar attack, rape or car accident - but
 JB> years later, when an individual is still haunted by memories of event.

 JB> The hope is that a post-traumatic stress disorder patient can work with
 JB> a psychiatrist and focus a traumatic event, take one of these drugs and
 JB> then slowly forget that event. With that hope, however, comes a series
 JB> of ethical concerns. What makes up our personalities - the essence of
 JB> who we are as individuals - if not the collected memories of our
 JB> experiences?

 JB> "This is all very preliminary," said Dr. Roger Pitman, a Harvard
 JB> Medical School psychiatrist. "We're just getting started. There is some
 JB> promising preliminary data but no conclusions."

 JB> Much of the research Pitman is currently conducting on human subjects
 JB> at Massachusetts General Hospital focuses on altering memories in the
 JB> immediate aftermath of a specific type of trauma - automobile
 JB> accidents. Subjects who arrive in the hospital's emergency room are
 JB> prescribed either the drug propranolol or a placebo.

 JB> Propranolol was originally developed to treat high blood pressure, but
 JB> its effect on the hormone adrenaline has made it popular among actors
 JB> dealing with severe stage fright, and scientists are now using it in
 JB> their research on memory.

 JB> "There is a period of time after you first learn something before it's
 JB> retained," Pitman explained. "This is called consolidation."

 JB> Some research has shown that stress hormones, particularly adrenaline,
 JB> make that process faster and more intense.

 JB> "That's why you remember what you were doing the morning of Sept. 11,
 JB> better than August 11," he said.

 JB> Some scientists believe that post-traumatic stress disorder is the
 JB> result of too much adrenaline entering the brain at the moment the
 JB> memory of a traumatic event is being consolidated, or stored, for the
 JB> first time.

 JB> But "the real hot topic," Pitman said, is not consolidation but
 JB> reconsolidation, the process by which an old memory is recalled and the
 JB> same "window of opportunity" to alter it with drugs is opened for a
 JB> second time.

 JB> By getting soldiers, or others who have lived through harrowing
 JB> experiences, to remember their traumatic experiences through talking
 JB> therapy, the theory goes, the chance to target and erase those memories
 JB> presents itself.

 JB> Reconsolidation remains a "controversial" theory
according to Pitman,
 JB> but Joseph LeDoux, a psychologist at New York University's Center for
 JB> Neural Science, said his recent experiments with rats adds to evidence
 JB> that it's real.

 JB> LeDoux is not trying to create a drug to treat humans. For him, the
 JB> specific drug isn't important. What is important is understanding the
 JB> process by which memories are retained and altered.

 JB> "The idea is that memories are vulnerable. They can be improved or
 JB> weakened. The main point is that we're trying to understand how this
 JB> all works rather than come up with a drug."


 JB> An Ethical Firestorm -- 'A Genie in the Bottle'

 JB> But the idea of improving or weakening people's memories gives many
 JB> medical ethicists pause. The President's Council on Bioethics has
 JB> condemned memory-altering research. The National Institutes of Health,
 JB> however, has funded some experiments that use propranalol for
 JB> post-traumatic stress disorder treatment, and Pitman said he has
 JB> received a grant from the Army to begin conducting similar research
 JB> with Iraq veterans.

 JB> "There are several major concerns" about creating these
kinds of drugs,
 JB> said Felicia Cohn, a medical ethicist at University of California at
 JB> Irvine's School of Medicine. "Is the act of altering memories even an
 JB> appropriate medical intervention?" she asked.

 JB> Another set of "issues is related to consequences. What are the effects
 JB> of altering a particular person's memory but not changing the context
 JB> the person is living in. We might erase a young girl's memory of a
 JB> rape, but people around her will still know and inadvertently remind
 JB> her," Cohn said.

 JB> "It becomes a genie in the bottle question. Once a drug is available
 JB> for use, it gets used appropriately and inappropriately. People could
 JB> start going to physicians to forget they love chocolate. . Is it just
 JB> for post-traumatic stress disorder and rape victims? Where do we draw
 JB> the line? Who gets to decide what is horrific enough?"
 JB> === Cut ===

 JB> Joe

 JB> --- GoldED+/W32-MINGW 1.1.5-b20061116

... Now using Linux Slackware 10.2
--- MultiMail/Linux v0.47