Ever wondered if it is possible for you to remember only the good things happened to your life? Like what happened to the characters of Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet in the science fiction, psychological thriller Eternal Sunshine For The Spotless Mind. To those who don't know, this film, which was released in 2004, tells the story of Joel Barish and Clementine Kruczynski, an estranged couple who decided to come to a doctor to erase memories of each other because they are still hurt of how their relationship turned out.
If you feel like you are Barish or Kruczynski, lucky you because a similar process that these two characters underwent to in the film might be available in the reality in the coming years. A recent study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has claimed that manipulating one's brain is now possible. In an article published by Anne Trafton in MIT News Office, the university's neuroscientists said that “they could reverse the emotional association of specific memories by manipulating brain cells with optogenetics — a technique that uses light to control neuron activity.” They have also revealed that brain circuit that controls the way memories are linked to different kinds of emotions.
Susumu Tonegawa, the Picower Professor of Biology and Neuroscience, director of the RIKEN-MIT Center for Neural Circuit Genetics at MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory was the senior author of the research. He said that in the future, “one may be able to develop methods that help people to remember positive memories more strongly than negative ones,”
This isn't the firsrt breakthrough that MIT achieved in such study. Just last year, Tonegawa's team successfully plantd false memories into the brains of mice. They said that “many of the neurological traces of these memories are identical in nature to those of authentic memories.”
“Whether it’s a false or genuine memory, the brain’s neural mechanism underlying the recall of the memory is the same,” Tonegawa told the school publication.
