Radiolab

This is such an amazing show. I love how accessible this show makes science for laymen.

Loved the editing and presentation of this most important topic. Downloaded the audio file. However, I don't believe that the entire show was included in the nice audio provided.

PLEASE put the rest of the audio for download!

Thank you.

I am totally in awe about your program. What I especially love about it, is the information you give about human nature, and todays program, about memory, was absolutely absorbing.. I was so throughly engrossed, especially because I could relate to those moments of lost memory. But this only happens when I am painting. So I am not yet worried about this circumstance. I get really create wonderful paintings in those moments.

Keep up the great job, and thank your producters. I do hope that you are continuing this program. I always feel that I am learning something new and interesting. Not enough of that in this day and age. So, Thank you.

Todays show a knockout. Sending this in case you did not receive my other email. I love the show.

I caught a portion of your broadcast on memory while in my car. FASCINATING! I teach research psychology and other psychology courses. I will be directing my students to your .MP3 file for download. You combined good science with excellent communication. You made it accessible to intelligent people without dumbing down the content.

Norman Costa

This show was re-played on WCPN in Cleveland this morning, and it was one of those that made me late for work because I couldn't stand to turn the radio off before the program was over. We hit a break in the program, and I immediately found the audio file online so I could listen to the rest of the program.

What a fantastic topic, explored in so many ways... movies, art, music, science, emotion. Great job, as always.

I sent the audio of the program to my sister un Argentina, she is a Psicology Proffessor at Mar del Plata University of Psicology, and she loved the program an the topic. She asked me if here is anyway that she could have the entire program written down to gave it to her students. Please let me know. Thks

Hi Nathalia,

If you have questions about using Radio Lab material in the classroom just shoot us an e-mail at radiolab@wnyc.org. Thanks for listening!

Radio Lab

I heard the show on WBUR. It was really interesting but it didn't make sense. Here's why.

In the rat experiment, they can't tell you what they are remembering or not remebering. However the patient in Canada, she was able to remember her trauma after being given the drug, she simply wasn't as affected by it emotionally. So maybe the rat remembers, but simply isn't afraid anymore. The drug erases the trauma associated with the memory. The rat remembers the tone is followed by a shock, but has not emotional (fear) attatchment to that memory.

Now as for each time you remember something you are creating a new memory, that doens't work either. I read a passage in Shakespeare and I memorize it. If I remember the passage each day it stays fresh in my mind and accurate. If I don't think of it for many years I'd be lucky to be able to recall it accurately at all. Unlike the kiss example given in the show this is the exact opposite outcome. Look at multiplication tables... There has to be a fundamental memory that you draw on to remember something. That base memory may fade over time, but it's there, you don't create it anew each time you remember it.

As usual, a fantastic show. Thought I would share this: researchers at MIT have identified the molecular structure that leads to fear and have successfully suppressed it in mice. This appears to be a more direct method than that used by Karim Nader.

http://pressesc.com/01184528191_cure_for_fear

Regardless of the approach, however, it is fascinating, enticing, and disturbing, all at the same time.

David,

Your comment about the protein synthesis only reducing fear is absolutely correct. The link to LeDoux's lab expands the explanation. Their work is done within the amygdala which is the primal emotional seat of our brain and our fear reaction originates here. Since they only stimulated protein synthesis in this region, the fear associated with the memory NOT the memory itself was eradicated.

I liked your metaphor of the multiplication table as a way of thinking about our long term memory and the way we use it.

One of my old professors studied memory, and he discussed an interesting thing: social memory. They did studies on couples who stayed together for 50 years as compared to those who stayed together for 10 or 15 and then split. The former couples had more memories of their former lives than did the ones who had separated.

Imaginative false-ish ones, perhaps, but still more.

Plus, though it might be that I'm generating a new memory every time I think of something painful, I think I still agree with Robert, because thinking about that memory has shaped who I am today, and I'd be a different person if I stopped remembering it as a painful experience that I may have learned from.

I know therapy works on the same issues, but at least I'm actively trying to reshape my mental map, and not having it done *to* me with a drug. Subtle difference, perhaps, but important to me. I can't even imagine what it would be like to be a Holocaust survivor and have those stark thoughts of human existence be lessened.

One interesting thing you mentioned in the program was that memories were less of a concrete thing and more of "you," at that moment, remembering. But what does that mean, then, about what "you" are? What is "you" if not memories?

Great show, as usual. I caught it on KERA today. I'd love to hear a segment on how eidetic memory works, or if it is even real. Eidetic memory doesn't seem to alter with recall, or be alterable by others.

To David-

I would imagine that memories in human beings are a little more complex than those in rats, and associated with many other things (Obvious maybe, but still important). Especially if it's a memory that someone has lived with for decades.

Take that passage of Shakespeare. You've lived with it, recalled it in varied circumstances, and it's become intertwined with those circumstances. Maybe you remembered it at a party, and one of the lines will always be intertwined with that party. Maybe you remembered it in a trivia contest, and therefore it will always be intertwined with that contest. And on, and on, and on. So if you're remembering it when you take that drug, you're not going to erase it completely, because you're still going to have those side associations.

You might remember the words, or not, with the drug, but the connections you make will be lessened.

I think, also, it could be explained that you *don't* have that base memory of text or multiplication tables, just the neuronal pathways you use for memorization become reinforced every time you recall the lines of the dialogue or tables, which can be quite often.

The implications of this research (especially regarding the plasticity of re-remembered inputs), are staggering. I am thinking of the potent effects of re-imaging news events, and the power of spin professionals. Repetition of reported events with incremental changes in the framing or commentary can have a huge effect on the collective recall of our media saturated psyche.

Bill

My tutor used this show for our listening activity. We didn't do the whole thing, but the segment we did was so good that I can't wait to listen to the rest (necessery to add that listening is by no means my favorite activity).Lily, you're right, the show really makes science accessible to laymen...Thank you, WNYC!

I like the information given and research done.

There is so much to know about this sugject and am pleased to know that you are playing a pivotal role.

How is the raining in Austin? Mom

Something about this episode bothered me.

The point is made over and over that the mind is not a file cabinet. We do not store master copies of our memories; we create them when we remember them.

They say that a memory degrades the more we remember it.

But it makes no sense to say we recreate the memory each time because there must be some information in our brains that maintains the connection between the actual event and our recollection of it.

For example:

Yesterday I meet a man with an orange shirt.

Today I remember the experience as meeting a man with an orange suit.

Years from now, I remember meeting a man with an orange hat.

All of this can follow from a process where I create a new memory and muddle the details over time.

But how can these recollections be in any way similar if there isn't some stored data that supplies the source material for the new memory I'm creating?

I mean, how else can I correctly maintain the memory of meeting a man and not a woman?

If I am truly creating a new memory each time - what's to stop me from remembering meeting a woman who hits me in the face with a rubber chicken?

Surely some kind of master record must be supplying the framework of what I am remembering - even if I can't access it directly. Even if I distort this data over time, mustn't I retain some kind of starting point?

This episode of Radiolab was my very first. Since, I have incorporated your program into my daily work routine. At 4:00, with an hour to go until my release, I grab a cup of terribly weak coffee from the finance guys across the hall and listen to an episode. That last hour is the most wonderful hour of my work day. I have an incredibly short term auditory memory and so repeat or not, I'm all ears and scribbling pen. I appreciate your work.

sincerely,

a brainsteam with a body sitting in front of a computer in wooster, ohio