What if there was a pill you could take to wipe away all your bad memories?
Well, despite what you may have seen in a 2004 movie, there isn’t.
But there is a drug called Metyrapone that appears to reduce levels of a stress hormone in the brain called cortisol that’s associated with memory. The drug has the potential not to erase bad memories but to reduce their negative emotional content.
Marie-France Marin is a doctoral student and lead author a study on Metyrapone conducted recently at the University of Montreal. Marin tells VPR’s Mitch Wertlieb 33 men were split up into groups and were then shown a slide show containing both neutral and negative events.
Click listen for the interview.