Researchers are working on an amnesia (健忘症) drug that blocks or deletes (删除)bad memories. The drug is used along with therapy to "dampen" memories of trauma (损伤)victims. They treated 19 accident victims for ten days, during which the patients were asked to describe their memories of t

　　he traumatic event that had happened 10 years earlier. Some patients were given the drug, which is also used to treat amnesia, while others were given a placebo(安慰剂). A week later, they found that patients given the drug showed fewer signs of stress when recalling their trauma.

　　A short 1966 science fiction story writes about selectively erasing (抹去)memories: Someone, probably at a government military-sciences lab, erased his conscious memories; all he know was that going to Mars meant something special to him, and so did being a secret agent.

　　双语：研究人员研制能抹去悲惨记忆的健忘药

　　研究人员正在研制一种健忘药，它可以阻止人们回忆起悲惨经历或将之从大脑中抹去，这种药与其他疗法一同使用以“削弱”受害者对伤害事件的记忆。研究人员用此药对19名事故受害者进行了为期10天的治疗，患者要描述10年前发生在自己身上的伤害事件。其中一些患者服用了健忘药，该药也可以治疗健忘症，其他人则服用了无任何疗效的安慰剂。一周后，研究者发现服用健忘药的患者回忆受伤害经历时表现出的压力特征更轻。

　　1966年出版的一部科幻小说写的就是关于如何有选择地抹去记忆：一些可能在政府的军事科学实验室工作的人抹去了主人公的自主记忆；他的全部想法就是登陆火星对他有特殊意义，另外就是成为一名秘密特工。