Researchers from the University of Cambridge have found evidence that "erasing" drug-related memories may help recovered drug abusers avoid relapsing. The study showed reduced drug-seeking behaviors in rats by blocking a chemical brain receptor related to memory. Blocking the receptor during drug-related recall seemed to prevent relapse.

Memories exist in different states depending on whether they are being recalled or not. When memories are recalled, they become "unstable" or malleable and can be altered or erased during the process called reconsolidation. Because relapse by drug abusers is often prompted when they recall drug-associated memories, the scientists found that by blocking these memories they could prevent relapse.

Professor Barry Everitt, an author on the study, commented:

"The results suggest that efforts should be made to develop drugs that could be given in a controlled clinical or treatment environment in which addicts would have their most potent drug memories reactivated. Such treatments would be expected to diminish the effects of those memories in the future and help individuals resist relapse and maintain their abstinence."

(Sources: sciencedaily.com)

Labels: behaviors, relapse, memory

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British psychologists have found that teen binge drinking causes losses in short-term memory.

Researchers at the University of Northumbria found that heavy drinking - five or more drinks in one sitting - caused teens to perform poorly on tests of memory. Particularly affected was "prospective memory," which involves remembering to do everyday tasks such as calling a friend. The students in the study were 17 to 19 years old.

Dr. Thomas Heffernan said the harm might become long-lasting or permanent. "They could be storing up problems for their futures," he said.

The study was presented at the conference of the British Psychological Society.

Read more about the long term effects of binge drinking at DrugRehabTreatment.com.

Labels: memory, binge_drinking, effects

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Researchers at the University of Sydney in Australia found that the chemical in marijuana affects adult and adolescent rats differently. In particular, adolescent rats lost more long and short-term memory.

Dr. Ian McGregor and his colleagues tested the rats' memories right after they ingested the drug, and again after all traces of it had left their bodies. The adolescent rats had deeper memory impairment. In addition, the adult rats avoided the "room" where the marijuana had been "served," but the teen rats did not.

"Cannabis produces much greater long-term changes in adolescent than adult rat brains," Dr. McGregor said.

This study appears in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology.

Labels: marijuana, brain_damage, memory

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"Wet brain" is not a delicate or positive phrase to describe one of the dangers of drinking. This term is a non-medical way to describe a condition that doctors call Korsakoff Amnesic Syndrome – a memory disorder caused by a lack of vitamin B1 (thiamine).

The main features of Korsakoff’s amnesic syndrome are the impairments in acquiring new information or establishing new memories … and in retrieving previous memories. …

A few experts now say that brain damage related to thiamine deficiency may be at least somewhat reversible, but most see little hope for complete recovery. [Source: Fresno Addiction Recovery Examiner]

Korsakoff’s syndrome is most common among alcoholics and people struggling with eating disorders because the brain is deprived of much-needed nutrients. Though improvements in memory can be made, some of the damage is permanent.

 

Labels: dangers-of-drug-use, alcoholism, memory

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