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American Morning

'Paging Dr. Gupta'

Aired January 09, 2004 - 08:45   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Medical news now, a new study providing a window into how the human brain blocks unpleasant memories. Interesting study.
Sanjay Gupta has been looking at it. The good doctor it here now.

What did you find out?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: I find it fascinating. And memory is one of these really difficult things to sort of figure out. A lot of people focused on why we remember certain things and forget. Doctors focus on how it happens.

Now a new study out of "Science," author by the name of Michael Anderson, lending some credence to the fact that there is a scientific basis perhaps for repressed memories, really fascinating stuff here. Repressed memories being to the point where people forget things. They can teach themselves not to remember things, and then to forget them altogether, so they can never be retrieved as well. Certainly a lot of high profile sort of things lend themselves to this, childhood sexual abuse cases for example.

Also Jessica Lynch, people remember that story as well, someone who went through a very traumatic experience, not able to remember it. We are not talking simply about amnesia here, but about not remembering and not being able to retrieve it at all.

O'BRIEN: We've been talking this has something to do with Sigmund Freud? Give us a history lesson. What's...

GUPTA: Well, Sigmund Freud, he was -- actually 100 years ago, the guy was brilliant in so many ways. You know 100 years ago wrote a thesis about repressed memories, actually saying that people are not able to think about something. It was very controversial. When you tell someone, don't think about a pink elephant, what's the first thing they're going to do? Think about a pink elephant. Exactly. So, but if you can teach people not to think about something and actually store it away somewhere, that's fascinating.

But the scientific basis of this I think is interesting, so if you'll indulge me for just a moment, there are a couple of images here as well, which really maybe graphically display what we're's trying to talk about here. Take a look here, when someone is trying not to remember something here, sort of a backyards thing. See the green light over there? That's the brain saying, don't remember, don't remember, don't remember. And that red area that you see lower down, that red area gets smaller and smaller. That's the memory area. So what happens is the green area gets bigger, the red area gets smaller.

There another image there which displays it as well. Again, you see all the lighting up going on there when is actively trying to forget, and those green areas where memory is stored, those get increasingly smaller.

HEMMER: What's most interesting I think in this study, is they're saying that you might never be able to retrieve the information or the memory again.

GUPTA: And that is probably one of the most fascinating parts of this on so many different angles, in medical legal, so many different angles. But that is what it appears to be. The study done by Michael Anderson, shows that people who consciously taught themselves to forget something, after a while, no matter how hard you tried, you just couldn't get it back out of them.

HEMMER: Interesting stuff. Thank you, Sanjay. We'll see you next hour.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired January 9, 2004 - 08:45   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Medical news now, a new study providing a window into how the human brain blocks unpleasant memories. Interesting study.
Sanjay Gupta has been looking at it. The good doctor it here now.

What did you find out?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: I find it fascinating. And memory is one of these really difficult things to sort of figure out. A lot of people focused on why we remember certain things and forget. Doctors focus on how it happens.

Now a new study out of "Science," author by the name of Michael Anderson, lending some credence to the fact that there is a scientific basis perhaps for repressed memories, really fascinating stuff here. Repressed memories being to the point where people forget things. They can teach themselves not to remember things, and then to forget them altogether, so they can never be retrieved as well. Certainly a lot of high profile sort of things lend themselves to this, childhood sexual abuse cases for example.

Also Jessica Lynch, people remember that story as well, someone who went through a very traumatic experience, not able to remember it. We are not talking simply about amnesia here, but about not remembering and not being able to retrieve it at all.

O'BRIEN: We've been talking this has something to do with Sigmund Freud? Give us a history lesson. What's...

GUPTA: Well, Sigmund Freud, he was -- actually 100 years ago, the guy was brilliant in so many ways. You know 100 years ago wrote a thesis about repressed memories, actually saying that people are not able to think about something. It was very controversial. When you tell someone, don't think about a pink elephant, what's the first thing they're going to do? Think about a pink elephant. Exactly. So, but if you can teach people not to think about something and actually store it away somewhere, that's fascinating.

But the scientific basis of this I think is interesting, so if you'll indulge me for just a moment, there are a couple of images here as well, which really maybe graphically display what we're's trying to talk about here. Take a look here, when someone is trying not to remember something here, sort of a backyards thing. See the green light over there? That's the brain saying, don't remember, don't remember, don't remember. And that red area that you see lower down, that red area gets smaller and smaller. That's the memory area. So what happens is the green area gets bigger, the red area gets smaller.

There another image there which displays it as well. Again, you see all the lighting up going on there when is actively trying to forget, and those green areas where memory is stored, those get increasingly smaller.

HEMMER: What's most interesting I think in this study, is they're saying that you might never be able to retrieve the information or the memory again.

GUPTA: And that is probably one of the most fascinating parts of this on so many different angles, in medical legal, so many different angles. But that is what it appears to be. The study done by Michael Anderson, shows that people who consciously taught themselves to forget something, after a while, no matter how hard you tried, you just couldn't get it back out of them.

HEMMER: Interesting stuff. Thank you, Sanjay. We'll see you next hour.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com