ANAESTHETIC drugs could be used to numb a different sort of pain: flushing out harrowing memories before they take hold and post-traumatic stress disorder develops.
Michael Alkire and Larry Cahill at the University of California in Irvine have discovered that anaesthetics can block the formation of memories associated with emotive images. “One popular misconception about anaesthesia is that unconsciousness occurs immediately,” says Alkire. In fact, low doses of anaesthetic can leave patients conscious but impede memory, he says.
Alkire and Cahill treated volunteers either with low doses of sevoflurane gas or with a placebo, and showed them a series of…
