Researchers have “decoupled” overlapping memories in mice and believe it will be possible to do the same with humans in the future.
Overlapping memories trigger positive and negative feelings, like how a perfume smell might remind you of an ex-lover and cause you to feel a burst of anger.
Scientists at the University of Toyama created two new memories in test mice, overlapped them and then split them apart again without erasing either.
Bad memories were made by forcing the mice to eat sweetener, a paper published in journal Science stated. Mice just can’t seem to catch a break
Every time mice ate the sweetener they were injected lithium chloride, which caused them to feel sick.
Several days later, the same mice were given an electric shock whenever they heard a certain noise, building a bad memory.
Next, the mice were given a food to lick that contained saccharine at the same time the tone was played.
This caused the mice to connect the two memories, making them overlap.
These layers of negative memories are rooted in humans suffering from post traumatic stress disorder.
After using optogenetic lasers on the mice’s brains, they were able to turn the memories off, they claimed.
The rodents stopped freezing when they tasted the sweetener but still remembered the fear of being sick and separately, feared the noise they associated with the electric shock.
Mice just can’t seem to catch a break.
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