This study was designed to examine the role of retroactive interference (RI) as a potential countermeasure that may weaken memory traces of the concealed items and attenuate the physiological responses elicited by them.
In other words, scientists had long thought that they knew how memories were formed and weakened, and now they had clear, cell-level proof of it, as well as a way of strengthening and weakening memories directly.
The new approach combines two methods previously shown to weaken memories of fear, says first author Marie Monfils, a neuroscientist at the University of Texas, Austin.
Then, the study authors tried to weaken memories associated with a painful stimulus.
However, the experiment builds on years of research that shows that ketamine has a unique potential to weaken memories safely.
With the well-seasoned Simon Callow and Ronald Pickup in supporting roles, Mr. McKellen (as Estragon) and Mr. Stewart (as Vladimir) convey both the instinctive rhythms of a veteran vaudeville team, grown rusty with time and weakening memory, and the irritable but loving interdependence of partners in life who have been together for some 50 years.
Events such as electroconvulsive shock or anaesthetization can weaken a memory; events such as injections of epinephrine or amphetamine can strengthen a memory.
Catecholamine depletion in PFC produces working memory deficits as severe as ablation of the tissue itself [ 43], and D1 receptor blockade similarly weakens working memory regulation of behavior [ 44, 45].
Legislators also fear that the constant churn weakens institutional memory and program oversight.
(Socrates, for one, felt that writing per se was going to not only hurt oral arguments, but weaken human memory).
