In January 2000, a Japanese government commission published a report that outlined the main goals for Japan in the twenty-first century. In the face of economic recession, rising crime rates and high unemployment, the commission was set up by the prime minister and given the task of 24 a new course for the country in the coming decades. The commission’s main findings surprised many people: Japanese citizens need to loosen their hold on some of their core values if the country is to address its current social ills successfully. The commission concluded that Japanese culture places too much value on conformity and equality, and called for action to reduce the “excessive degree of 25 and uniformity” in society. It pointed to some basic facets of Japanese life which 26 this conformity: almost all schoolchildren in Japan wear identical dark-blue uniforms that mask signs of individuality, while employees generally stay late at the office 27 they do not need to because of an unspoken rule about leaving early. These values, the commission concluded, prevented Japanese people from 28 notions of individual empowerment that would be essential in the coming years.

　　Post-traumatic stress disorder is a malady of memory. Sufferers are often haunted by recurrent nightmares, distressing thoughts and flashbacks so intense in color, smell and sound that they feel as if they are reliving the trauma. But what if these unbearable memories could be selectively erased? Sheena Josselyn, a professor of physiology and psychology, who studies how the brain encodes, stores and uses information, is intrigued by the idea and has been investigating how to “silence” memories --make them temporarily inaccessible-- in mice. She thinks it’s possible that a variation of this technique could one day help treat post-traumatic stress disorder in humans. 

　　Studies with mice have found that although their brains contain billions of neurons, only a few are necessary to form a fearful memory. Researchers working with mice began by teaching them to fear a tone: when it sounds, they feel a mild shock to their feet (not to hurt them, just to scare them). The next time the mice hear the tone, they crouch and freeze, signaling fear. The researchers discovered that they could trigger the memory of that fear even without presenting the tone. They did this by stimulating the small group of nerve cells holding that memory through a technology called optogenetics. Using the same technology, they found they could also suppress the fearful memory. With optogenetics, scientists insert proteins into neurons to make them sensitive to light. Depending on the type of protein and color of light used, these cells can then be activated or deactivated by shining pulses of the light directly into the brain. If the light activates the cells, the mice freeze as if they’ve just heard the tone. If the light deactivates the cells, the memory is suppressed. While optogenetics is an invasive procedure and technologically not feasible with humans, Josselyn hopes that the general principles learned from these studies could eventually help scientists create new drugs for treating memory disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder and Alzheimer’s. 

　　But should you erase a bad memory? Absolutely not, says Josselyn. She emphasizes that this future technology should not be applied to everyday bad things, and that these discoveries need to go hand in hand with a real thinking about the ethics involved in potentially manipulating memories in people. Their use would only be considered in extreme cases after all other treatment options have been explored. The goal is not to sanitize life or make people super happy, but rather to make everyone a functional person, capable of moments of joy.