Ideas worth spreading

Can we edit memories?

2,389,465 views | Amy Milton • TEDxCambridgeUniversity

Trauma and PTSD rewire your brain -- especially your memory -- and can unearth destructive emotional responses when stirred. Could we eliminate these triggers without erasing the memories themselves? Enter neurologist Amy Milton's mind-blowing, memory-editing clinical research poised to defuse the damaging effects of painful remembered experiences and offer a potential path toward better mental health.

Trauma and PTSD rewire your brain -- especially your memory -- and can unearth destructive emotional responses when stirred. Could we eliminate these triggers without erasing the memories themselves? Enter neurologist Amy Milton's mind-blowing, memory-editing clinical research poised to defuse the damaging effects of painful remembered experiences and offer a potential path toward better mental health.

This talk was presented to a local audience at TEDxCambridgeUniversity, an independent event. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

Read more about TEDx.

About the speaker

Amy Milton

Behavioral neuroscientist

See speaker profile

Amy Milton researches to understand how memories are updated in the brain.

Michel Gondry | NBC Universal, 2004 | Watch

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

A fictional take on the notion of destroying memories. While distinctly a work of science fiction, it is a wonderful and interesting film.

Nature, 2015 | Book

Learning to Forget

Brief documentary by the journal Nature describing the studies aiming to exploit reconsolidation in human participants.

About TEDx

TEDx was created in the spirit of TED's mission, "ideas worth spreading." It supports independent organizers who want to create a TED-like event in their own community.

Find a TEDx event near you

This talk was presented to a local audience at TEDxCambridgeUniversity, an independent event. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

Read more about TEDx.