Scientists Find How To Remove Taumatis Memories, Have A Good Impact On Mental Health

JAKARTA - Not long ago, scientists found a way to erase bad memories and traumatic memories of a person. These findings are said to have a good impact on mental health.

Quoting from Science Alert, on Tuesday, January 14, 2025, researchers conducted research by identifying 37 participants to link the random word in the negative image. This step was taken before trying to reprogram bad memories.

The team of scientists used image databases that were classified as negative and positive. For example dangerous animals, compared to quiet views and smiling children.

"We found this procedure weakening memories of unpleasant memories and also increasing the unconscious intrusion of positive memories," the researchers said in a journal published in PNAS.

On the first night, memory exercises were used to ask volunteers to link negative images with unreasonable words made for the study. The next day, the researchers tried to link half of these words to positive images in the participants' minds.

During the second night, the recording of unreasonable words said was played in the non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep phase which is known to be important for memory storage. Brain activity is monitored by using electroencephalography.

Through a questionnaire the following day and a few days later, researchers found volunteers were less able to recall negative memories, which had been randomed with positive memories. Positive memories are more likely to appear in their heads than negative memories, and are viewed with more positive emotional bias.

Non-invasive sleep interventions can thus change unpleasant memories and affective responses. Overall, our findings can offer relevant new insights for the treatment of pathological memory or related to trauma, "said the researchers.

However, the study is still in its early stages and requires rigorously controlled lab experiments. However, researchers believe the research will later be able to help people who want to forget the traumatic experience in their lives.

"Our findings paved a wide road to trying to weaken unpleasant or traumatic memory," the researchers concluded.