Scientists find a good way to treat the pain of broken love-"forget love"

Scientists find a good way to treat the pain of broken love-"forget love"

A researcher in Montreal, Canada said that he found a way to "edit" a person's memory through psychotherapy and beta receptor blocker drugs to eliminate the emotional trauma of breaking up with love.

Dr Alain Brunet has spent 15 years researching post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD), researching people who have participated in war or terrorist attacks, and crime victims.

A large part of his research has focused on the development of what he calls "resolidification therapy." This is an innovative treatment that can help eliminate the emotional pain in traumatic memory.

One of the focuses of his work is an inconspicuous drug "Propranolol"-a type B sympathetic blocker that has been used for many years for general diseases such as hypertension and migraine Treatment, but current research shows that it has wider uses.

This memory resolidification treatment method is to take propranolol about one hour before the psychological treatment, and then the patient will be asked to write down his traumatic experience in detail and read it out aloud during the treatment.

"A lot of times when you think about a memory, if there is something new to learn, that memory will be unlocked, and then you can update it, and then it will be stored again," the Canadian clinical psychologist told the BBC.

This process of resolidifying the memory opens a window, giving you the opportunity to find the highly emotional part of that memory and target it.

"We are using the latest knowledge from neuroscience to treat patients with how memory is formed and how it is unlocked, updated, and then re-stored," Dr. Brune said.

His work is often reminiscent of the sci-fi movie "Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind" (also translated as "Warm and Warm"). Wash away each other's memories. However, Dr. Brune pointed out that the memory after the resolidification treatment will not disappear, but it is no longer sad.

In human memory, those core facts are stored in the hippocampus of the brain, and the emotional part of memory is stored in the amygdala.

Dr. Brunner found that the effects of propranolol can affect the resolidification of memory. 

"Imagine you are shooting a movie the old-fashioned way, and your video and sound are on two different tracks," he said.

When a person recalls his traumatic experience, he will go through the two tracks again. Propranolol helps to lock one of them—the emotional part of memory—inhibiting its resolidification and suppressing its pain.

Under the influence of this drug, memories will be "stored" in the brain in a new version with relatively less emotional color.

His research shows that approximately 70% of patients will find relief after several resolidification treatments.

In researching this therapy, Dr. Brune collaborated with other PTSD researchers, including Dr. Roger Pitman, a PTSD expert at Harvard University.

Following the deadly terrorist attacks in Paris and Nice, he launched a project in France to train about 200 doctors to use this therapy to help the victims, witnesses and frontline staff recover psychologically.  So far, more than 400 people in France have received this treatment in this program.

After some success in treating post-traumatic stress disorder, Dr. Brune said he wanted to expand the scope of this treatment.

In 2015, with Michelle Lonergan, a former student at McGill University in Montreal, he turned his attention to those who were injured and betrayed in love.

"You look at the tragedies of ancient Greece. What do they talk about? It's mainly betrayal," he said. "It really is at the heart of the human experience."

He pointed out that a bad breakup can also be very painful, and the emotional shock that people feel may be similar to those who have experienced other major traumas.

The patients they convened to participate in the study were not just people who were slightly hurt. There are cases of derailment, and some people are suddenly abandoned by their partners who think they love themselves very much.

Dr. Brune said that it was difficult for them to deal with the kind of people who could not "turn over this page, but couldn't get past this level."

"These are the words that people have been telling them to no avail, but friends know the problem."

These patients are like experiences in the film Groundhog Day (Hong Kong translated as Groundhog Day, Taiwan translated "Stop temporarily today")-it was a 1993 film, Bill The role played by Bill Murray (Bill Murray) repeated the day of February 2nd again and again-these patients are the same, but they are indulged in their minds all day long to remember those that caused them pain betray.

What he and Dr. Lonagan discovered was that many of these injured people, like PTSD patients, were relieved after the memory resolidification treatment, and some even improved after one treatment.

After 5 treatments, when they read aloud the memory of their betrayal again, they felt, "It's like reading a novel, it's like a story written by someone else."

"This treatment mimics the way ordinary memory works, and we will gradually forget and turn over this page," he said.

His laboratory in Montreal is currently convening about 60 people to conduct a new memory resolidification study, all of whom have been betrayed or deceived in a love relationship.

Dr. Brune also hopes that the field of memory re-solidification treatment will be expanded once again to study phobias, addictions and complex depression problems.

He said he hoped that the therapy could be used for "any kind of distress caused by an emotional incident."