Wednesday, January 11, 2017

Drinking to Forget Your Sorrows Doesn't Work - We Have Science

Overconsumption of booze can easily put you into an undead zombie state or even put you straight into a box but we don't exactly call that forgetting anything.  Experiments discovered alcohol doesn't help mice forget and instead exacerbates fearful memories.  (Science Daily:  Alcohol prevents ability to extinguish fearful memories in mice)

Experiments in mice by researchers at Johns Hopkins suggest that if the goal is to ease or extinguish fearful emotional memories like those associated with post-traumatic stress disorder, alcohol may make things worse, not better. Results of their study demonstrate, they say, that alcohol strengthens emotional memories associated with fearful experiences and prevents mice from pushing aside their fears.

- SD

Johns Hopkin is an impressive institution and they tell us they have not only observed the problem since they also have something more than a palliative.  Alcohol is identified at the Rockhouse specifically as a palliative insofar as it professes to help you forget bad things but does not deliver.

In a summary of their findings, published online Jan. 3 in Translational Psychiatry, the researchers say their experiments also identified what they believe is the molecular mechanism responsible for alcohol-related fear relapses and successfully used a drug, perampanel -- currently used to treat epileptic seizures -- that reverses the malingering effects.

"If the effects of alcohol on memories to fearful responses are similar in humans to what we observe in mice, then it seems that our work helps us better understand how traumatic memories form and how to target better therapies for people in therapy for PTSD. In fact, binge drinking or other attempts to use alcohol to self-medicate could be sabotaging any therapy efforts," says Norman Haughey, Ph.D., professor of neurology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Researchers estimate that 60 to 80 percent of people with PTSD binge drink as a means of "self-medication."


- SD

Ed:  you smoke marijuana to forget!

Negatory on that one, Dagwood.  It only takes a cursory look at Ithaka to see I aim to remember everything I possibly can.

Note:  that's an odd choice of words regarding a 'malingering effect' as that implies PTSD is feigning something to get out of work but we know that's not true.  It's definitely a 'lingering effect,' however.


There seems some general thinking one will only suffer PTSD due to some type of military incident and that happens to many but my favorite method was with motorcycle crashes.  There's no need to again relate the biggest one but something like that I wouldn't mind forgetting, particularly when it didn't teach me much of anything.  It took years before I could ride again but I did do it.

Ed:  and crashed again!

Yep, that too (larfs).


In my own case, I would be exceptionally leery of any drug which will 'help me forget' since how would I even know if it caused me to forget too much.  For me, that perampanel is really scary so I need to see quite a bit more science on the matter before I would consider using it.

Ed:  you have treated your mind like a soccer ball with illegal drugs!

Fair enough but they added experience, they didn't remove it.


Necessary disclaimer:  we don't use narcotics / opiates in the Rockhouse and that includes 'doing a toot for the Fourth of July;' it doesn't happen.

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