Today, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has become a hot topic in the western media, especially after the US`s involvement in the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait. It is estimated that since 2001 the American tax payers have paid out about $ 4.4 Trillion or more dollars for the costs of wars (Crawford). The toll of post traumatic stress on war veterans and its major socio economic impact on society has unleashed a a major interest by psychiatrist and therapists groups around the world to explore the field of PTSD study and move towards developing amnesia inducing drugs to treat this condition by attempting to disconnect the effects of the memory with deep emotional scars and pain in affected people . Post traumatic stress disorder
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When one is subjected to a horrific and traumatic event, the memory of the event is consolidated in the mind and consequently in the genetic material of the subject, and when the event is invoked, this triggers a series of behavioral patterns that often lead to suicides, murders, hate crimes, and other abnormal events that greatly reduce the abilities of the person to operate in a normal way. Despite the major excitement by well known scientific groups to explore treatment of this ‘disease’ of the mind there is a sinister reminder between the interest in this field and Mary Shelley`s Frankenstein, a Modern Prometheus. Shelley`s recounts the narrativetale of Dr Frankenstein a scientist that overeaches the frontiers and limits of sScience, with dire consequences for humanity. In trying to do the right thing for mankind, Dr Frankenstein unleashes a destructive force. One sees in this allegory a cautionary and dark reminder that blanking out memories by scientific experiments is to dangerously manipulate uncharted territories of the human …show more content…
The mice will cow down in a corner of their cage, or freeze and not operate in a normal way. This is exactly what scientist wanted to happen because this very closely mimics what happens in reality with human beings. Returning veterans often tells that symptoms of PTSD manifest itself when a sound orf a sentence suddenly brings painful flashbacks of the daunting memories of horrific memories of war even though it happened several decades ago. Interestingly enough, when the ‘fear deconditioning’ or extinction therapy is carried out in a more pleasant environment for the animal a few hours after the association, it is possible to dissociate the bad memory to the sound. However, when the dissociation experiment is carried out an at interval of one or two months then it becomes impossible to relieve the fear of the animal as it seems the memory gets deeply ingrained in the genetic configuration of the subject, so as shown in some studies (Reardon) time of therapy is an important factor. In other studies (Buchem), when the drug propanolol is administered to the subject in association with the ‘extinction therapy’ treatment the mice stops showing signs of stress when they heard the debilitating sounds. A team of the psychotherists under Dr LeDoux recently confirmed the concept that a part of the brain called the amygdala is crucial to this whole process -
When one is subjected to a horrific and traumatic event, the memory of the event is consolidated in the mind and consequently in the genetic material of the subject, and when the event is invoked, this triggers a series of behavioral patterns that often lead to suicides, murders, hate crimes, and other abnormal events that greatly reduce the abilities of the person to operate in a normal way. Despite the major excitement by well known scientific groups to explore treatment of this ‘disease’ of the mind there is a sinister reminder between the interest in this field and Mary Shelley`s Frankenstein, a Modern Prometheus. Shelley`s recounts the narrativetale of Dr Frankenstein a scientist that overeaches the frontiers and limits of sScience, with dire consequences for humanity. In trying to do the right thing for mankind, Dr Frankenstein unleashes a destructive force. One sees in this allegory a cautionary and dark reminder that blanking out memories by scientific experiments is to dangerously manipulate uncharted territories of the human …show more content…
The mice will cow down in a corner of their cage, or freeze and not operate in a normal way. This is exactly what scientist wanted to happen because this very closely mimics what happens in reality with human beings. Returning veterans often tells that symptoms of PTSD manifest itself when a sound orf a sentence suddenly brings painful flashbacks of the daunting memories of horrific memories of war even though it happened several decades ago. Interestingly enough, when the ‘fear deconditioning’ or extinction therapy is carried out in a more pleasant environment for the animal a few hours after the association, it is possible to dissociate the bad memory to the sound. However, when the dissociation experiment is carried out an at interval of one or two months then it becomes impossible to relieve the fear of the animal as it seems the memory gets deeply ingrained in the genetic configuration of the subject, so as shown in some studies (Reardon) time of therapy is an important factor. In other studies (Buchem), when the drug propanolol is administered to the subject in association with the ‘extinction therapy’ treatment the mice stops showing signs of stress when they heard the debilitating sounds. A team of the psychotherists under Dr LeDoux recently confirmed the concept that a part of the brain called the amygdala is crucial to this whole process -