Transcript Memory - Glacier Peak High School

Memory
By Conner McCormick and
Riley Ritter
The forgetting pill
Lehrer, Jonah. “The Forgetting Pill Erases Painful Memories Forever.” Wired.
February 17, 2012.
<http://www.wired.com/magazine/2012/02/ff_forgettingpill/>
 The
human mind is extremely complex,
but with recent studies on the mind and
memory, we are getting extremely close
to being able to target specific memories
and erase them completely from your
mind.
The forgetting pill
Lehrer, Jonah. “The Forgetting Pill Erases Painful Memories
Forever.” Wired. February 17, 2012.
<http://www.wired.com/magazine/2012/02/ff_forgettingpill/>

Jeffrey Mitchell became
very interested in the
effects of memories after
witnessing a terrible and
fatal car crash. The
experience haunted him
for quite a while until he
finally came out and
talked to his brother
about it. From his own
experience he came up
with a strategy to help
patients that have
suffered from scarring
memories. He called this
treatment critical incident
stress debriefing (CISD).
The forgetting pill
Lehrer, Jonah. “The Forgetting Pill Erases Painful
Memories Forever.” Wired. February 17, 2012.
<http://www.wired.com/magazine/2012/02/ff_forgettin
gpill/>
 The
main idea behind CISD is that when a
client is in a welcoming and peaceful
environment and is asked to recall their
memories, it will gradually help them cope
with their terrible memories. CISD wasn’t
invented solely on the thought that it was
maybe a good idea, there was some
science behind it.
The forgetting pill
Lehrer, Jonah. “The Forgetting Pill Erases Painful Memories Forever.” Wired.
February 17, 2012.
<http://www.wired.com/magazine/2012/02/ff_forgettingpill/>


Although most Americans (63 percent
based on a recent survey) believe that
human memory functions exactly like a
video camera, being able to recall
events with exact detail in the way that
it actually happened, but that is
actually not the case.
Every time that a memory is accessed in
the brain, the memory is actually
distorted and changed based on the
mood that you are in at the time.
Different things are remembered or
created every time that you recall the
memory.
The forgetting pill
Lehrer, Jonah. “The Forgetting Pill Erases Painful Memories
Forever.” Wired. February 17, 2012.
<http://www.wired.com/magazine/2012/02/ff_forgettingpill/>


This is exactly why Mitchell
believed that CISD would be
effective, but studies showed
that CISD actually wasn’t
effective due to the fact that
the patients were suffering from
post traumatic stress disorder
and were still very heavily
affected by the experiences
with fear.
The reason that it had worked
for Mitchell is because he had
given it a lot of time before he
began to share and talk about
his experience.
The forgetting pill
Lehrer, Jonah. “The Forgetting Pill Erases Painful Memories
Forever.” Wired. February 17, 2012.
<http://www.wired.com/magazine/2012/02/ff_forgettingpill/>
 Memories
that are formed are actually
physical in the brain, “it’s because a
network of neurons has been altered,
woven more tightly together within a vast
electrical fabric.”
The forgetting pill
Lehrer, Jonah. “The Forgetting Pill Erases Painful Memories
Forever.” Wired. February 17, 2012.
<http://www.wired.com/magazine/2012/02/ff_forgettingpill/>
 Karim
Nader began researching memory
in the late 1990s, and what he came up
with was a major breakthrough. He knew
that proteins were required for making
memories, so he decided to start with
stopping the protein synthesis to see if it
would affect the way that a memory is
recalled.
The forgetting pill
Lehrer, Jonah. “The Forgetting Pill Erases Painful Memories
Forever.” Wired. February 17, 2012.
<http://www.wired.com/magazine/2012/02/ff_forgettingpill/>


He began with tests on rats, associating a specific
sound with a shock, so that every time that the
sound was made the rats would freeze in fear to
await the shock.
After injecting chemicals that temporarily stop the
proteins from doing what they should, he quickly
found that he had discovered something great.
The forgetting pill
Lehrer, Jonah. “The Forgetting Pill Erases Painful Memories
Forever.” Wired. February 17, 2012.
<http://www.wired.com/magazine/2012/02/ff_forgettingpill/>


They have yet to do any sort of tests similar to
this on humans, because they still aren’t quite
sure how the human body will react to
something like this.
The problem that Nader runs into now, is that
he is unable to ask the rats how they feel, if
they feel like they are forgetting something, if
they miss it or whatever else.
The forgetting pill
Lehrer, Jonah. “The Forgetting Pill Erases Painful Memories
Forever.” Wired. February 17, 2012.
<http://www.wired.com/magazine/2012/02/ff_forgettingpill/>

The problems could be
endless, but for now, it is
a breakthrough in
science and is thought
to soon be easily
accessible in the form of
pills, so that humans will
soon be able to control
what they want to
remember.
Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's Association. “Inside the Brain: An Interactive Tour”. alz.org.
Alzheimer's Association. 2012. http://www.alz.org/braintour
and
Spangler, Frederic. “Alzheimer's Disease.”csa. Fall 1997.
<http://www.csa.com/discoveryguides/archives/alzheimers.php>

Alzheimer's disease is
basically a form of
dementia, that has to
do with ones
biochemistry changing.
With old age it shrinks
the brain and impairs
ones functions but
mainly affects memory.
With the first signs of
Alzheimer's the person
suffers from short term
memory loss but in the
latter stages is more
effected by long term
memory loss.
A brain without the
disease
Comparing the two
A brain with
advanced
Alzheimer's
Amnesia
"Amnesia." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 11 Apr. 2012.
Web. 11 Apr. 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amnesia>.
 Amnesia
is a disease that deals with the
loss of memory, mainly short term.
 In most cases people know who they are,
but just cannot preserve new information.
 They disease can be caused by any type
of injury to the brain such as stroke,
inflammation of the brain or even certain
medications.
What's the Secret to Stop
Memory Loss?
iq-50. April 12, 2012. Health Journal Today.
<http://www.easybib.com/reference/guide/mla/website>

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6MjyhaGfsQ
&feature=player_embedded

Millions of people from around the world suffer
from memory loss. Researchers have recently
assembled a now substance that supposedly
helps a great amount with memory loss, with the
main ingredient being coline . Although some may
not be able to handle the powerful antioxidants
that are in this magical memory medicine.
IQ-150
Memory
Support
“recovered memory”
controversy
Pope, Dr. Kenneth. “Science as Careful Questioning: Are
Claims of a False Memory Syndrome Epidemic Based on
Empirical Evidence?” kspope. 1996. <
http://kspope.com/memory/science.php>

To sum it up, recovered memory in the patients
eyes happens basically when they have
something traumatic happen to them in their life.
They then suppressed that memory because it was
so awful the brain couldn’t bare to think of it. Next
the person goes and sees a psychologist and then
the memories suddenly come flooding back. The
controversy comes into play when some think the
doctor triggered the patient to make up these
false memories in their brain, by asking leading
questions and so on. That is why these memories
are so controversial, are they really "recovered” or
simply just a fake reality to the patient, some will
never know.