What is Digg?68 Comments
- omgitscolin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+21Not a chance. One is nothing more than the sum of one's memories. Lose a memory, good or bad, and you lose a part of who you are.
- ryanlive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+18There's always soma to calm your anger, to reconcile you to your enemies, to make you patient and long-suffering. In the past you could only accomplish these things by making a great effort and after years of hard moral training. Now, you swallow two or three half-gramme tablets, and there you are. Anybody can be virtuous now. You can carry at least half your mortality about in a bottle. Christianity without tears-that's what soma is.
- Brave New World - neoform, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind?
- gandre, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Excuse me but I smoke pot to celebrate life
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8I took propranorotflmao and I never felt better! :D
- Rxbrent, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8That's been going on for decades. Isn't that why people smoke pot, drink too much and abuse pain pills. To forget how much their lives suck.
- mousy, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9You learn from your mistakes.
Erase them and your an idiot. - ZeroMP, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Doesn't seem like a good idea to me to take drugs designed to impair your memory. After all, isn't the evolutionary purpose of pain to remind us not to do something stupid twice?
- lucas22, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Personally, i use and recommend REPRESSITOL ®
- billymachine, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Anesthesiologists don't make staggering amounts of money for nothing, I guess!
- AnotherBrian, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Ya, but then can't you just erase the memory of being an idiot by erasing them?
- dpb33300, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4This happened to me at my vasectomy procedure. They drugged me to forget the procedure. It is an odd feeling. But I agree the technology has been perfected for years. It's just now in pill form.
- Moebaca, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3whattt i have been taking this for 3 years for essential tremors and have not lost any painful memories yet........actually my short term memory is really ***** but thats about it
- heffer2k02, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3If I was beaten and raped within an inch of my life, I'd gladly forget my so called "mistake".
- billymachine, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Actually, I found myself eerily reminded of the Lacuna Corp. from that movie Endless Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Lesson: Don't erase Kate Winslet from your memory! Just don't, okay??
- everywhereasign, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Very nice, I'll have to ask all the people that are already on it as a beta blocker.
- Moebaca, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2yeah i used to take a lot to but i dropped it down to 10 mg a day and it is working perfectly but i am always tired. that could just be that I'm a teenager though lol
- wild, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3The name looks like Propane and LOL. So burn your memories away and be happy.
Has to be a board rat on the naming commitee. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -5/+7This is actually exactly what anesthetics do.
When surgery is performed on you, they put three chemicals in you.
One of them puts you to sleep,
One of them is a paralytic (disables your muscle function),
the last one is a memory loss agent. What it does is it continuously erases your short term memory, meaning that you actually experience the pain of getting cut open (or whatever surgery you're having). However, the memory loss agent prevents you from rememebering it when you come back to conciousness.
This also explains why people wake up during surgery and feel all the pain, but can't scream or do Sh*T about it.
looll.
intereseting though.. - oobuntu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I've taken the drug (its a beta blocker in the UK) for stress reasons (wedding day nerves, other related stuff), and it appears to lessen the physical effects of fear/anxiety, but nothing like what you would hope or think.
- lordmetroid, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I want a pill to allow me to access every memory I had, that would make learning so much easier.
- thorn101, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2This is excellent for people with PTSD.
But what I found the most interesting is the revelation that adrenaline enhances memory.
The next time I study I'll stick my hand in a bucket of ice water. - martalli, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2This borders on the ridiculous. Propranolol has been used for decades to treat high blood pressure, arrhythmias, essential tremors, migraine headaches, and other problems. Newer and better drugs in its class have come along for those problems over the years. Propranolol was probably in wider use in the past, especially after the Vietnam War, when PTSD was first described as it is known now.
The 60 min piece made propranolol sound like an excellent option, but if it was so effective, clinicians would have already figured it out. - hackwrench, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2There is a big difference between event memory and skill memory and editing one need not affect the other.
- Otto, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Actually, they generally only use that sort of anesthesia when actual painkillers would not be acceptable for whatever reason. The more common form of anesthetic acts on the nervous system, to suppress the pain signals going to the brain. This can be dicey though, because you need your nervous system working in order for important stuff like heartbeat and breathing and such. Or they work on the brain directly to suppress the pain response area. Or, in some unusual cases, there's not even a good theory as to why the hell the anesthetic works, they just know it does.
This is really why anesthesiologists make the big bucks. - sq2shooter, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2This is true. There have been multiple cases where patients have sued because they woke up during surgery (anesthetic wore off) and did not have an amnesic agent on board so they remembered conversations that occurred during their surgury. While they may have experienced no pain (their analgesic was still working) they do recall the conversations of the surgery team. There have been other cases where patients have sued because they not only woke up but could feel the pain of surgury (anesthetic and analgesic wore off). Those are expensive mistakes for the anesthesiologist. They routinely give an amnestic (like this drug or Versed) agent to prevent a patient from recalling anything during surgery in those rare cases where the patient wakes up.
/ use to sell anesthesia - droversoul, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@ ZeroMP
Although impossible in our lifetime, it definitely would be interesting to see what impact it would have on human evolution. Excellent point! - GlassUser, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It may depened on the procedure or what they use. When I had minor surgery, I clearly remember thinking about things hurting - I don't remember them actually hurting, just thinking about it. It's quite bizzare.
- SammyJr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Amazing how many of the comments about Propranolol's accepted uses are dugg down. Propranolol has been around for a long time and is available as an inexpensive generic - $16.99/per 100 20mg tablets. Its nothing new.
Its really just a mild anti-anxiety med - it reduces blood pressure and heart rate as well as calms the shakes. Like another poster mentioned, its commonly used to calm performance anxiety. I keep some handy for job interviews and what not, just to take the edge off. - DaFunk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Propranolol a "new" drug? Nah, it's been used for years to treat hypertension and following heart attacks. This is the first time I've heard of this off-label use for it. I'm not sure how a beta-blocker would affect your memory, but I can see how it would mellow you out, as it crashed your blood pressure.
- invinciblechunk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2LOL @ pain drug story right underneath Rush Limbaugh story.
- heffer2k02, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2You experience the pain during surgery - but forget about it? I'm pretty sure thats not right. ECG's have been used to ensure the patient isn't actually experiencing any pain (because of that whole thing about some patients experiencing pain but being paralyzed).
Your suggesting that all patients go through this experience, but that they've metaphorically been knocked on the head to forget about it. - shreela, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2If a dr were to prescribe this drug to me now, for hypertension, angina, migraines, or whatever other uses there are for it, I'd say NO WAY, because I'd be afraid of it affecting my memory. So if this new 'discovery' for this drug is so that the drug company can extend their patent, I wonder if they shot themselves in the foot, because who in their right mind would want to take this drug if it might affect their memory?
I saw that it's recommended that people taking this drug regularly should NOT stop taking it abruptly for it might increase the chance of heart attack of chest pain. Another reason I'd not want to get on this drug. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2If you take the drug, does that mean you'll also forget that you took it?
- Stevethegreat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1There is no ethical debate about such a drug. It will be used in extreme non-reversible conditions. If, however, someone else erase some of his "bad" memories will shoot himself in the foot, he 'll either redo the same mistakes that caused him these bad memories and/or he'll create a huge black hole in his conceived past, since memories are attached one to another. If for example doesn't see his father around he'll ask in the end and in one way or another he'll find out that he died, in either way the bad memories won't go as easily way since they were based on facts. Either way the (wo)man who'll decide to erase some of his/her memories without having some good (clinical) reason would be in the bottom of the Darwinian pit, which means that even if such drug wasn't around (s)he would find another way around to screw him/herself.
A molested child of course is the other end of this spectrum, and such a drug could actually help him/her. - vertice, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1That kind of reminded me of this comic :
http://plif.andkon.com/archive/archive.htm
I wish they were still making plif comics =P - blast_flame, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Well I don't remember this hurting much when I did it last time so...
- steenbean18, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This is lame...propranolol is a beta-blocker and it's already used a lot for people with high blood pressure. It's been around since the '50s, and it's not even all that good of a drug because they have better options now. I don't know why they're starting to bring it back for more studies like this...what a waste of money.
- SammyJr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Propranolol can make you sleepy. If you're taking a lot, it could just be fatigue that is making your short term memory crappy.
I was taking it for ET as well... I had to stop taking it regularly as it was just killing my energy level and I was sleeping too much. - JavertHolmes, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This will be great for people exposed to very traumatic events like, say, the Iraq war or torture (or both). Of course, the pill will likely just be abused by dumbasses like someone who wants to forget about the argument they had with their bf/gf about their favourite TV show yesterday.
- fiffer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I actually take Propranolol for mild anxiety symptoms... it was described to me as a performance anxiety drug - one is still anxious intellectually but not physically. Allows you to experience anxiety as an emotion not as a physically debilitating attack. Always makes me think of that TV on the Radio lyric, "I will be calmer than cream..."
- hackwrench, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1There are no "evolutionary" purposes. To try to assert one outcome as the main role a trait that has persisted without credentials and in such a general forum as this is foolhardy as best.
The primary role of pain could be to lay off of a damaged part to let it heal. It's too easy to just come up with reasons for pain, or pretty much any other persistent trait for that matter.
Besides the hypothesis has long been suggested that you don't need pain to learn from your mistakes. - SammyJr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@ray901
At 17 cents a pill with me taking maybe 20 a year, big pharma truly is laughing all the way to the bank! LOL - ph33rm3, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1from somebody who's currently taking propranolol i don't see how they're getting these effects, all it does is constrict your blood vessels to stop your heart from racing, thus preventing a panic attack.
- Nickatnite101, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Funny, i thought people used Alcohol for the same thing.
- hackwrench, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Too bad there isn't more research done on causality that doesn't follow the perceptual flow of time.
- smergs, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I didn't read the article, but... How do we know that the pill might not have a bad side affect and cause someone to lose all of their memory? Just sounds like a bad idea to me.
- hackwrench, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I wonder how they could test to see if the drug in addition to erasing the memory doesn't have a reverse temporal effect as in:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twilight_%28Enterprise_episode%29
Perhaps the erasing of the memory is actually a side effect of a reverse temporal effect. - mad7777, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0oh yeah... well... how about $2 billion and a whole harem full of blonds & redheads! top that, losers!!!
did i win something?? - chaosmachine, on 10/12/2007, -4/+4propranoLOL..
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