The Potential of Memory-Erasing Drugs

AJOB Neuroscience

The latest issue of AJOB Neuroscience features two target articles:

Propranolol and the Prevention of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: Is it Wrong to Erase the "Sting" of Bad Memories?
by Michael Henry, Jennifer R. Fishman, Stuart J. Youngner

Functional Neuroimaging and the Law: Trends and Directions for Future Scholarship
by Stacey A. Tovino

As always, each target article is accompanied by a group of peer commentaries. This month's issue also features two editorials: "Rethinking Neuroethics in the Light of the Extended Mind Thesis" by Neil Levy and "Not Forgetting Forgetting" by Judy Illes. The full text of the latter is available for free. Here's a snip:

In the context of law and justice, conversation about the potential of memory-erasing drugs or devices to interrupt the cycle of criminal activity often perpetuated by those who are themselves abused is yet untapped (Coxe and Holmes 2005; Weiler and Widom 2001). If interfering with memory could intervene with the anger, revenge, and hopelessness experienced by people who are abused - sufferers of a bona fide form of post-traumatic stress disorder in its own right - the impact on the way in which society views and enacts criminal punishment could be profound. The prison population in the United States alone has quadrupled to two million inmates since 1980 - an unprecedented explosion that is creating unprecedented costs. Surely, the personal and societal cost of rehabilitation and reintegration over incarceration of these individuals, especially children and adolescents, would be reduced. Difficult questions would need to be answered: What would a maintenance schedule for intervention look like? What would be the long-term effects, especially on the still-plastic young brain? What support systems would be needed and how they would be financed? Neuroimaging could be combined to predict behavior or recidivism but, as Stacey Tovino's (2007) target article suggests, how that could be achieved with acceptable accuracy and without coercion or stigma is an open question. Nevertheless, in asking the question of gain or loss, I would still wager gain. At the very least, new research will tell us about possible practical, tangible gain, even in the face enduring moral uncertainties.

Source: http://blog.bioethics.net/2007/09/september-2007-ajob-neuroscience/