Greenwich Skeptics in the Pub

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: How Close Are We to a ‘Forgetting Pill’?

Mental health conditions, such as posttraumatic stress disorder and drug addiction, are sustained by the formation of ‘maladaptive memories’ which come to dominate behaviour. These could be ‘trigger stimuli’ inducing flashbacks and distress in people with PTSD, or the re-exposure to people, places and paraphernalia associated with drug use leading to relapse in an addicted person trying to remain abstinent. Consequently, there has been great interest in the idea of ‘forgetting pills’ – drugs that might, when combined with psychological therapy, weaken or even erase those maladaptive memories. But what can these pills really do, and do we want ‘forgetting pills’ anyway? This talk will consider the science behind memory updating, and what the evidence suggests we can, and can’t, do in targeting maladaptive memories.

Amy Milton is a behavioural neuroscientist who has spent more than 20 years studying the processes of memory updating and persistence, with a focus on maladaptive memories contributing to mental health disorders. She is a Professor in Behavioural Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge, where she leads the Memories in Neuropsychiatric Disorders (MiND) lab. She has appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Curious Cases, contributed to an Arte television documentary on forgetting, and her TED talk on ‘Editing Memories’ has received over 2.4 million views.