The emphasis in this video on human consequences of the idea of memory erasure bothered me. How can one leap from an experiment with mice to a drug that could delete a memory from a human brain? I do understand the desire to document the popular demand for this imaginary drug. The personal stories were tear-jerking. But, mice are a long way from humans. Monkey's for instance would need to be tested before this drug could ever be used on humans. How ethical would it be to test on humans to begin with? The wouldn't know what they had signed up for if it actually worked. The experiment itself could be explained in other ways. For instance, what if the mice were numbed to the pain of the shock after given the drug which allowed them to run around in the circle unafraid. Or perhaps the drug pissed off the little mice so that they did their best to rebel against the painful test by pushing through the pain of the shock. Also this memory was placed so recently and deleted right afterward. How long would the memory loss last? If humans wanted to do this they would be aiming for a farther back memory in time to erase. Still this research is exciting and hip.
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The emphasis in this video on human consequences of the idea of memory erasure bothered me. How can one leap from an experiment with mice to a drug that could delete a memory from a human brain? I do understand the desire to document the popular demand for this imaginary drug. The personal stories were tear-jerking. But, mice are a long way from humans. Monkey's for instance would need to be tested before this drug could ever be used on humans. How ethical would it be to test on humans to begin with? The wouldn't know what they had signed up for if it actually worked. The experiment itself could be explained in other ways. For instance, what if the mice were numbed to the pain of the shock after given the drug which allowed them to run around in the circle unafraid. Or perhaps the drug pissed off the little mice so that they did their best to rebel against the painful test by pushing through the pain of the shock. Also this memory was placed so recently and deleted right afterward. How long would the memory loss last? If humans wanted to do this they would be aiming for a farther back memory in time to erase. Still this research is exciting and hip.
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