Everyone of us has certain experiences and memories in life which imbibe constant fear, anxiety and amusement. For years, neuroscientists have been working on technology to help them remove certain episodic/stressful memories from a human brain. Perhaps the most important and colossal scientific achievement is not far from us now. A new experiment done by experts at UC Davis Center for Neuroscience and Department of Psychology, on mice brains have shown some successful signs. Scientists were able to remove certain memories in mice using light rays. Which is good, since the rodents won’t remember the trauma they went through as lab rats. 

The latest development is perceived as an important milestone in the field of Optogenetics. Experts at UC Davis including Kazumasa Tanaka and Brian Wiltgen have reported success in removing certain memories when they manipulated the brain cells of mice using rays of light. Experts used cerebral cortex and the hippocampus, the minute areas of the brain that are located deep inside to remove certain memories in mice. In order to check the results, they put some mice in a cage and gave electric shocks. Normally, mice show signs of fear and depression in the place where they have bad experiences. But when the experts erased the “bad memory” of electric shock by playing with certain nerve cells in the hippocampus using light, the mice showed no signs of fear and anxiety in the cage where they were given shock treatments.

Experts said that the results were achieved after deep analysis of collaborative thought process in the brain that occurs between cortex and hippocampus. This latest research has opened new horizons of research that can lead to surgical removal of memories from the human brain.