Synapses

Some links to things published by other people that that I found strange and wonderful:

I do love my anatomical drawings, so this item got me extremely excited:
Memento Mori, Part I, a short chronicle of illustrations in anatomy books. In the spirit of the last post, I thought I'd mention Charles Estienne's 1545 De dissectione partium corporis humani, which supposedly

"includes a number of woodcuts of nude women that were, according to Rifkin, originally intended as ‘genteel humanist erotica’, but were altered by partial dissection and the inclusion of anatomical information relating to reproductive anatomy. Included are Bathsheba being spied upon by David (below), as well as the goddesses Venus, Antiope, and Proserpina. A good example of the complex relationships between art, medicine, books, and sex during the early modern era."

(Bookn3rd)

No, that is not what I meant by "extremely excited." Shame on you.
Although I must say that the concept of genteel humanist erotica (or Porno della Mirandola, if you will) is really rather intriguing.


Good news, everybody! If the image of me slavering over some vivisected Venus was too much for your prim sensibilities, then pop some blood pressure pills. Why's that, you ask? Well, apparently, beta blockers can wipe your memory! That's right, the utopia traditionally reserved for the likes of Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet is now available to the public at large. The BBC reports that these pills, typically used to treat cardiac arrhythmia and severe hypertension, can also "erase bad memories." Scary, right?
Well, kind of. Researchers

"artificially created a fearful memory by associating pictures of spiders with a mild electric shock delivered to the wrists of the volunteers.... The researchers assessed how fearful of the pictures the volunteers were by playing sudden noises and measuring how strongly they blinked, something called the 'startle response.' The group that had taken beta blockers showed less fear than the group that had taken the placebo pill."

So, the startle response was dampened, but that makes sense because beta blockers are beta-adrenergic antagonists, meaning they block the hormone adrenaline from reaching the receptors it uses to initiate a neurologic response. Adrenaline is the big "fight-or-flight" hormone, so it's really no surprise that blocking its action could in some way alter the startle response.
The next day, those who had been administered the beta blocker still showed less inclination to run screaming from the room: "Study leader Dr Merel Kindt explained that although the memories are still intact, the emotional intensity of the memory is dampened." Well, that makes sense, too. If you are exposed to a frightening stimulus while under the effects of an adrenergic suppressant, you will have a softened fear response. Naturally, your memories of that fright will be less potent than if you had not be suppressed during the experience.

Now, if they could just find a drug that worked retroactively on memories of trauma...
Actually, nevermind. That would be positively terrifying. Perhaps it is my personal bias against memory alteration, but I find the possibility of even dampening memories to be rather scary. Now, perhaps sufferers of PTSD would disagree here, and I must admit that there is some merit to helping them ease their pain. However, the larger-scale and longer-term implications of altering memory still don't sit well with me. Maybe I'm one of those luddites who will stand in the way of better living through chemistry. I'm not exactly going for my pitchfork, but I will echo the cautionary words that so often accompany scientific advance: tread carefully, and with copious forethought, because if we rush headlong into something like this, we could end up forgetting why we were worried in the first place, and those are memories we don't want to lose.

Well, how very hypocritical of me: I've just finished berating the BBC for being sensationalist about a relatively banal study, and here I am spouting dire prophecies of woe unto the wayward Children of Bacon.* I'll cease.

I hope my links have brightened your otherwise dreary existence.


*That's Francis Bacon (the father of empiricism), definitely not Roger Bacon (the alchemist who had a talking brass head), and most likely not crispy-fried strips of pig (which are delicious, but not very scientific).