The linked study suggests that specific memories may be able to be erased. The subjects were snails, though I believe the researchers directly reference their belief that it may be applicable to humans.
http://newsroom.cumc.columbia.edu/blog/2017/06/22/select-memories-can-erased-leaving-others-intact/
Thoughts?
Only read the article, not the paper yet. It's very interesting that they seem to have correlated non associated memory with protein as well as associated memory.
But I doubt we can erase memories themselves - as the article suggests, rather we can only interfere with them (their patterns). So we might be able alter the brain's network structures as the researchers suggest, but - I think - those structures probably only allow us to access memories.
By altering the brain's network structures (a pattern) as the researchers suggest, one might lose access to a past pattern (a past experience). But even if the researchers are proven to be correct, I doubt the mechanism could be targeted so specifically by a drug, without unexpected memory and processing effects elsewhere in the network that may be difficult demonstrate. A human brain is after all much larger and more complex than a snails brain, how would one know if we were also disregarding other associations from those targeted... until we started to have problems in life.
Further, there is no certainty that the brain won't just reverse the process overtime. Other researchers have taught a rodent to fear an environment using pain, so that it freezes when it renters the same environment. They then destroyed the rodents network structures so that they resembled final stage Alzheimer's. They were able to show the rodent no longer froze when it entered the environment, suggesting it had lost access to past learning. They then reversed the rodents network destruction with a robust process of learning. Later they reintroduced the rodent to the special environment, and it froze again. Suggesting that the rodent had only lost access to past learning, rather than losing its actual memories, which could be restored by restoration of ones networks through learning.
Personally, I think these researchers are barking up the wrong tree... memory can't purely be stored within the brain.
The brain appears to be little different to a notebook where one writes down patterns in black ink on white paper, so when one wants to reaccess ones past brain states sometime later (in the future), one rereads ones notes from the past.
It seems somewhat clear to me that my brain, and my environment are probably one. The environment being the result of a shared process, where as my brain allows me to operate as an individual (to some degree). I can manipulate, store and share things in the environment. And my environmental experiences can affect my brain, and these past experiences can affect my future behaviour in the environment.
What we put into the environment (what we store through manipulation) therefore affects us all. One might therefore need to be a bit more careful/choosy about what one puts into the environment.