Cocaine users have trouble forgetting useless data

Our memory functions as a gigantic archive in which it is so important to store memories as to discard them. Our brain must remove unimportant or unnecessary information to allow other more relevant memories to be stored more effectively. Come on, as if it were a computer in which from time to time you have to send files to the recycling bin.

However, there are people for whom this task of eliminating memories is a little more difficult than for the rest. Which people? Those who use cocaine as usual.

A study carried out by scientists from the universities of Granada and Leiden (The Netherlands) has shown that people who use coca have more difficult to forget irrelevant data. Therefore it is also more difficult for them to forget intentionally.

 

The research has been conducted at the Center for Research in Mind, Brain and Behavior (CIMCYC) and suggests that the consumption of this drug alters the control mechanism responsible for suppressing certain types of irrelevant information.

To reach this conclusion, the scientists performed two experiments. Three types of people participated: "recreational" coca buyers (those who have taken from 1 to 4 grams of coca per month in the last 2 years), chronic consumers and two control groups formed by people who had never used drugs .

In the first part of the experiment they had to memorize a list of words that they then had to remember. And in the second part had to do the same, except that now they had to forget one of the lists. However, at the end of the study they were asked to remember both the words they should study and those that should be forgotten.

And they came to the conclusion that both recreational and chronic consumers showed greater problems than people in the control group when intentionally forgetting irrelevant words. The problem came to such an extent that the words not forgotten interfered with the relevant ones, which made it more difficult for them to remember them.

This suggests that coca consumption may be altering the control process involved in suppressing different types of irrelevant memories. Because, according to Manuel J. Ruiz, a CIMCYC researcher, "those people who use cocaine would hardly be able to forget irrelevant or persistent information. An example of this could be related to intrusive or repetitive thoughts that lead cocaine addicts to consume again, making the detoxification process more complex. "