Ethics

Real-Life Memory Erasure in Humans

By Adam Kolber

As I noted in a recent post, Advances in Selective Memory Erasure, the New York Times recently ran an article about selective memory erasure in rodents.  That's still less exciting than real-life memory erasure in humans.  So this seems like a good time to finally post a link to a recent article of mine in Neuroethics, entitled Freedom of Memory Today.

In this short article, I describe a real-life case of intentional memory erasure (from over 10 years ago!) and discuss some of the legal and ethical issues it raises.  The circumstances of the case make it unlikely to occur often.  Nevertheless, I suggest in the abstract, "The case reveals why the contours of our freedom of memory -- our limited bundle of rights to control our memories and be free of outside control -- already merit some attention."  You can download the article here.

Full post as published by Neuroethics and Law on April 16, 2009 (boomark / email).