wanted to erase a painful memory?

All of us have wanted to erase a painful memory at some point.

Now scientists claim they are on the verge of a breakthrough after

finding a way to potentially delete trauma from our minds.

They have discovered a link between a protein called PKM and our

recollection of disturbing events.

Their study, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, could have

profound implications for war veterans, the victims of violent

crimes and those suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Lead researcher David Glanzman, from the University of California,

Los Angeles, said: 'I think we will be able to alter memories

someday to reduce the trauma from our brains.

'Not in the immediate future, but I think we will be able to go

into one's brain, identify the location of the memory of a

traumatic experience and try to dampen it down.

'We can do this in culture, and there is no essential difference

between the synapse in culture and the synapse in your brain.'

Professor Glanzman, a cellular neuroscientist, and his team

reported that they have eliminated, or at least substantially

weakened, a long-term memory in both the marine snail known as

Aplysia and neurons in a Petri dish.

The researchers said they have gained important insights into the

cell biology of long-term memory.

They discovered that the long-term memory for sensitisation in the

marine snail can be erased by inhibiting the activity of PKM, a

protein associated with memory.

The research could also help treat drug addiction, in which memory

plays an important role, and perhaps Alzheimer's disease and other

long-term memory disorders.The researchers studied PKM in the

marine snail, which has simple forms of learning and a simple

nervous system, so that they could understand in precise detail how

PKM's activity maintains a long-term memory, a process that is not

well understood.

They looked at a simple kind of memory called sensitisation. If

marine snails are attacked by a predator, the attack heightens

their sensitivity to environmental stimuli - a 'fundamental form of

learning that is necessary for survival and is very robust in the

marine snail,' Professor Glanzman said.

They succeeded in erasing a long-term memory, both in the snail

itself and in the circuit in the dish.

The researchers are the first to show that long-term memory can be

erased at a connection between just two neurons.