By catching memories at their most vulnerable, it might be possible to rewrite our past. But should we do it? And just how close are we to a ‘forgetting pill’?

Dr Amy Milton is a University Lecturer in the Department of Psychology at the University of Cambridge, and the Ferreras-Willetts Fellow in Neuroscience at Downing College, Cambridge. She researches how memories persist (and can be modified) in the brain. She is particularly interested as to whether debilitating psychiatric disorders based upon ‘maladaptive’ memories, such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and drug addiction, could be treated by erasing these memories.