Trauma victims wish they could forget. It may soon become possible. Multiple sclerosis medication helps erase bad memories.
Forget about bad memories, that was the script of the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, by Michel Gondry. Reality may well join fiction. This May 25, in Nature Neuroscience, researchers detail the beneficial effects of a treatment used in multiple sclerosis (MS) to erase traumatic memories.
In patients with MS, fingolimod (Gilenya) inhibits the receptor that regulates T lymphocytes. But the drug also acts on histone deacetylase enzymes; they are found in neurons, and more particularly the hippocampus, which is the center of learning and memory. It could therefore have beneficial effects after a traumatic event, have assumed researchers from Virginia Commonwealth University (United States).
Long-term effects
The research team tested the effectiveness of fingolimod in mice. One group received a placebo, the other the drug. All the rodents underwent the same protocol: they were placed in a cage, subjected to a slight electric shock and then taken out again. Regularly, the researchers returned them to the cage and assessed their reaction. The mice on the placebo showed stress by coming to rest in the cage. In the short term, rodents treated with fingolimod also froze. But a day after the administration of the drug, they no longer showed any stress.
The drug crosses the brain barrier and helps stressed animals to forget about the trauma. The mechanism could be similar in the human central nervous system, the team believes. What is better known as the fear extinction process is evaluated in many patients with phobias, eating disorders, emotional upheaval or trauma.
Fingolimod is certainly not the ideal solution to these mental disorders, remind the authors of the study. The drug has too many side effects on the immune system, heart and lungs. On the other hand, the study lays the foundations for the development of new, more specific treatments.
.
