The Proust pill

Back in 1998, I decided to write a novel about a memory pill -- a drug that would work like Proust's madeleine. While I was busy writing, the science caught up with fiction.

(Illustration by Shout) Illustration by Shout

By Pagan Kennedy

June 25, 2006

E-mail|
Reprints|

Text size – +

A FEW MONTHS AGO, researchers at West Virginia University stumbled across a gene in the mouse brain that appears to erase long-term memories. When scientists switched off the gene, the mice developed super-charged memory, able to recall the solution to a maze they'd seen six weeks before, an eternity in mouse time. The discovery is only the most recent in ... (Full article: 1038 words)