Ethics Concerns Shouldn't Stop Research on Memory-Altering Drugs, Law Prof Says
Ethics concerns shouldn’t stop research on memory-altering drugs that could help people traumatized by bad events, according to a professor at Brooklyn Law School.
Writing in the journal Nature (sub. req.), professor Adam Kolber argues that delay could hinder people who are debilitated by harrowing memories, report the Independent, LiveScience.com and io9.com.
“The fears about pharmaceutical memory manipulation are overblown,” Kolber writes. “Thoughtful regulation may some day be appropriate, but excessive hand-wringing now over the ethics of tampering with memory could stall research into preventing post-traumatic stress in millions of people.”
According to LiveScience.com, a drug called propranolol is being tested to help relieve post-traumatic stress from bad memories. It would be taken right after the traumatic experience. The Independent cites research on a drug called ZIP that blocks the ability of rat addicts to remember where they had been given cocaine.
A U.S. Presidential Commission on Bioethics considered the issue in 2003 and advised counseling rather than medicine to deal with post-traumatic stress. It cautioned that memory is closely linked to a person’s sense of self and drugs could interfere with the ability to lead a true and honorable life. But Kolber says drugs might be more effective, “making patients more true to themselves than they would be if a traumatic experience were to dominate their lives.”
Kolber continues the discussion at his Neuroethics & Law Blog.
