`Tweaking memories` could help addicts avoid relapsing
Baku, April 14 (AZERTAC). Manipulating memories of drug use may help reformed addicts avoid a return to a life of drug abuse, according to scientists in China.
They said memories linking "cues" - such as needles or cigarettes - and the pleasurable effects of drugs caused cravings and relapsing.
Authors of the study, published in the journal Science, "rewrote" those memories to reduce cravings.
Experts said targeting memories could become a new avenue for treatment.
Repeatedly showing people drug cues without actually giving patients the drug is a part of some therapies for addicts. It can break the link between cue and craving in the clinic. But this does not always translate to real life.
The researchers at Peking University tried to rewrite the original memory so that it would be as if the link between cue and the craving never existed.
The work relies on the idea that a memory can become malleable after it is accessed, creating a brief window during which the memory can be "rewritten".Twenty-two heroin addicts who had not taken the drug for - on average - 11 years, took part in the study.
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