"Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it." — Michel de Montaigne

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"[...] New research out of the U.S. holds out the hope of a superhuman assist for failing memories — and a badly-needed new therapy for Alzheimer's patients.
     The study by researchers at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston — led by neuroscientist and former McGill University postdoctoral fellow Mauro Costa-Mattioli with contributions from a couple of Canadians — found suppressing a molecule called PKR in the brains of mice improved the rodents' memory function and learning abilities. [...]
     In one type of test, the mice used visual cues to find a hidden platform in a pool. It took days of repetition for the regular mice to remember where to find the platform, while the mice without PKR learned after one try."
— Hilary Roberts, PostMedia News
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"'When you look back at painful memories, is it just as raw?' [Lesley] Stahl asked.
'Sometimes it'll be as though it happened yesterday. Sometimes, it's as though it happened last week,' [Louise] Owen said.
     Just the mention of a sad day, like the one in 1986 when Owen learned she'd have to change schools, and she relives it emotionally. 'I felt like my whole world was collapsing. And you say that and it's like all of a sudden I feel like this really heartbroken little 13-year-old all over again,' she explained.
     She said the feeling was vivid and awful, even after all these years. 'I mean, my heart is actually pounding right now in telling you this,' she told Stahl.
     She says her memory is a gift, but there are definitely downsides.
     'Sometimes, having this sort of extreme memory can be a very isolating sort of thing. There are times when I feel like I'm fluent in a language that nobody else speaks. Or that I'm walking around and everybody else has amnesia,' Owen explained."
— CBS News
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"Researchers at Harvard and McGill University (in Montreal) are working on an amnesia drug that blocks or deletes bad memories. The technique seems to allow psychiatrists to disrupt the biochemical pathways that allow a memory to be recalled.
     In a new study, published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research, the drug propranolol is used along with therapy to 'dampen' memories of trauma victims. They treated 19 accident or rape victims for ten days, during which the patients were asked to describe their memories of the traumatic event that had happened 10 years earlier. Some patients were given the drug, which is also used to treat amnesia, while others were given a placebo."
— LiveScience
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