Many people suffer from thoughts depressing consciousness, worry about work, family, failures in personal life and many other things. Sometimes depression or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) spoil a person's quality of life so much that it leads to very sad consequences. How wonderful it would be if there is a pill that can suppress unwanted thoughts in the brain that spoil the mood and distract from truly useful activities. Scientists from Cambridge seem to be getting closer to solving this problem.
The solution, the researchers believe, lies in a special substance recently discovered in the brain that can suppress such negative thoughts. A team of scientists led by Professor Michael Anderson and Dr. Taylor Schmitz conducted an experiment on a group of subjects under the uncomplicated name "Think / Not Think". It meant that the subjects memorized a series of unrelated words. After that, they were asked to remember the words, showing them only the first word in the chain. However, a person had to remember the remaining words only when he was shown a word written in green letters. If the letters were red, he had to try to suppress the memory of the rest of the words.
Using functional magnetic resonance imaging and magnetic resonance spectrography, the scientists closely monitored the subjects' brain activity and chemistry. It was noted that the prefrontal cortex, the so-called "command center" of the human brain, plays an important role in suppressing thoughts. But the most interesting finding was the effect on this process of a chemical known as gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA). It is the main inhibitory neurotransmitter in the brain, and when GABA is released by one nerve cell, it suppresses activity in the remaining cells associated with it.
The discovery of scientists is especially important because for the first time they discovered the truth about how the process of suppressing thoughts in the human brain occurs. In particular, the concentration of GABA in the hippocampus (actively involved in the process of memory work) allows scientists to predict how effectively a subject will be able to suppress memories of words. In other words, scientists are getting closer to solving the mystery of how the science of the future can heal humanity from unwanted thoughts, feelings and depression. The research results were published in the journal Nature Communications.