Investigating The Memory Thief with Lauren Aguirre

Inquiring Minds

Female Host, Critical Thinking, Society & Culture, Neuroscience, Interview, Science, Social Sciences

4.4 • 848 Ratings

🗓️ 23 August 2021

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Of all the side effects of opioid use that exist, one that is only recently starting to get the attention it deserves is that of becoming amnestic. That doesn’t mean that this effect hasn’t been on the radar of some researchers over the years, though. As far back as 2016, Neurology Specialist, Dr. Jed Barash, brought some case studies to Indre’s attention, and today’s guest, Lauren Aguirre, has built upon Jed’s findings to write The Memory Thief and the Secrets Behind How We Remember. An award-winning science journalist who has produced documentaries, short-form video series, podcasts, interactive games, and blogs for the PBS series NOVA, Lauren combines her personal experience with her extensive amount of research to generate both a book and an interview here today that you will not soon forget. Show Links: Inquiring Minds Podcast Homepage Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/inquiringmindsSupport the show: https://www.patreon.com/inquiringminds

Transcript

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0:00.0	You and Betty and the Nancy's and Bill's and Joes and Jane's will find in the study of science
0:06.4	a richer, more rewarding life.
0:10.7	Welcome to Inquiring Minds. I'm Indravis Gontas.
0:14.2	This is a podcast that explores the space where science and society collide.
0:18.2	We want to find out what's true, what's left to discover, and why it matters.
0:26.6	In 2016, I got an email from someone named Jed Barish. It was in my capacity as an editor for a journal called NeuroCase,
0:39.4	and he warned me that the paper that he was submitting was a bit odd. It was about people who
0:46.1	had taken opioids and then become amnestic, and that it had somehow affected the hippocampus.
0:53.7	This was odd, because after all, for my graduate work, I studied the hippocampus.
0:58.8	I thought I knew about as much as most people who spend a lot of time, decades even, studying
1:04.7	the hippocampus knew, and I'd never heard of an amnestic syndrome that came from using too many opioids.
1:11.6	But I sent his paper out to reviews and more reviews.
1:15.3	And they all came back really positive.
1:18.1	People were intrigued.
1:19.2	It seemed like something that hadn't really been, well, discovered before, but that
1:24.4	something that it was real.
1:26.2	A few years later, he wrote a review paper in the same
1:29.0	journal that we published of several more of these cases, so it wasn't just a single case. And then I got
1:35.6	an email from him just a few months ago, and he told me that a science journalist had written a book
1:42.2	about these cases and that I should read it. And he was
1:45.6	exactly right. Lauren Aguirre wrote a book called The Memory Thief, all about these odd ways
1:51.9	in which our memories can be hijacked by the things that we do, including the drugs that we take.
	...

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