OT about PTSD - interesting study on drug that may block traumatic memories

Since I know there are a number of people here who suffer from PTSD, I thought I would share this link.  I don't know when or IF this will ever lead to anything, but it made me feel hopeful for people who suffer from significant PTSD.

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/819452

Lora

Awww have to log in to view it, s o would need to sign up.

I would love to try this as I can't seem to shake my abusive experience with my ex and he had been out of my life 20 years now and it still haunts me.

Oops!  Sorry.. I forgot about that!  Here is the basic info:

A new drug that inhibits histone deacetylase 2 (HDAC2) activity may aid in the treatment of posttramatic stress disorder (PTSD), new animal research suggests.  

Investigators at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, found that giving mice an HDAC2 inhibitor can extinguish traumatic memories ― a finding that may eventually lead to clinical application.  

"By inhibiting HDAC2 activity, we can drive dramatic structural changes in the brain," Li-Huei Tsai, director of the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT and the study's senior author, said in a statement. "What happens is the brain becomes more plastic, more capable of forming very strong, new memories that will override the old fearful memories."

I have two friends for whom this would be an amazing thing. I hope they are able to accomplish such a thing. Especially the one who has said she'd give up all her good memories to get rid of the horror of the weekend she was help captive and raped repeatedly and brutally by a group of young men/teens. 

I have lots of questions about this.  While at first it sounds like a great idea, the more I think about it, the  more I'm not sure.

First, would it somehow be able to block on traumatic memories?  Not also some neutral or good memories from around the same time?

Second, would it block ALL traumatic memories or just some?  And what about, I'm not sure how to explain what I'm thinking, but memories that are sort of related to the trauma but aren't traumatic themselves?  For instance, my father was abusive when I was a child.  So if there was a drug that block all those horrible memories, that might seem like a good thing.  I have intrusive thoughts, flashbacks, etc related to the abuse.  But because of the abuse, I have had no contact with my father in more than 20 years.  So if I no longer remembered the abuse, I would still remember that, say my father hasn't sent me a birthday card in more than 20 years, right?  I would remember that when I was seriously ill with pneumonia (in ICU, on a respirator for several days) my father did not come to visit me, right?  Now, since I do remember the abuse, I am very glad he did not come to visit me because I absolutely did not want him there.  I don't want him at my funeral if I die before he does.  But if I didn't remember the abuse, would I remember that I didn't want him there?  And how would that make sense if I didn't remember the abuse?

It seems to me like it could end up making you feel crazy to have big gaps in your memory.  For that matter, I did dissociate during some of the abuse and it does make me feel sort of crazy to have partial memories, like a few pieces of the puzzle, but to be missing chunks so they don't fit together right to make a complete picture.

I definitely understand your point. I am sure that would have to be one of the many aspects studies when/if this gets to human trials.  There may be situations where it simply isn't appropriate as you have described.  

The studies they did with the mice were relative to an isolated memory (being physically shocked) and the outcome was extinction of that fearful memory.  For people like me where the traumatic memory involves complete strangers, being able to wave a pharmaceutical magic wand (along with whatever psychological intervention was required) and literally just wipe large portions of that out, or even to just extinguish the fear response if not the memory itself, would be a godsend.

Yep! It would be different for strangers vs people you 'know'. I'm very intrigued and hope to hear more in the future. 

I can see how it might work better on a one-time trauma.  I'm fascinated by the idea.  It just raises so many questions for me.

Like, if it was a one-time trauma, would it totally erase the memory?  Would you know there there used to be a memory there and that there is now something you don't remember?  Or would you  not even know that? 

What if you had an injury or a scar or something as a result of that trauma?  Would you no longer remember how you got that scar?  And would it bother you if you had a scar or permanent injury of some sort and didn't remember how you got it? 

Would you ask other people in your life not to mention the trauma to you ever in any way?  If people did say something about it, would you then remember it again or would you have no idea what they were talking about?

This may not make any sense but I think part of me would feel like, even though those memories are really awful and traumatic, they are part of who I am.  I don't know how I would feel about just erasing all that.

All good questions.  I don't mean this to sound at all flippant, but I cannot figure of how to say it without risking that... Unfortunately (and obviously) with studies in mice, they don't know those kinds of questions; they only know that the old fear response was extinguished.

I remember losing one of the two scars that I had on my body from the trauma incident.  It was, very unexpectedly, very distressing for me to lose both of those scars when I had my arm lift and tummy tuck surgeries. Although it was sometimes hard to see those scars and be reminded of how I got them, once they were gone, it was almost like the only physical evidence of the extent of the trauma was gone.  It took me about a year to work through that.  At first I was disappointed that a tiny part of the scar in my arm still showed (despite my surgeons's best atte,PT to get it all when he did the arm lift), but I am now kind of glad that I can look at that small piece of what was a large scar and see the "evidence" that validates the psychological part of the trama.

Of course these questions can't be answered by mice and I assume many of these issues aren't an issue for mice.  I mean, another mouse isn't going to mention the previous shock to one of the mice that has forgotten it, right?  I know animals do communicate but I don't think they talk about stuff like that.