Hi, it's Ira Flato, and you're listening to Science Friday.

Today on this show, the malleability of memory.

You can't step in the same river twice.

I think it's the same thing with memory, that you can't exactly recall the exact same memory twice.

Our memories make us who we are.

Just ask Barbara Streisand.

But seriously, despite the lyrics to popular music, memories are not frozen in time.

When we recall memories, details shift and shape over time.

In fact, the latest neuroscientific research

shows that we can go even a step further to actually manipulate our memories and even implant

false ones. I know this sounds somewhat sinister, not to mention the plot of a few science fiction

movies. My next guest is optimistic that memory manipulation can revolutionize how we treat brain disorders.

Dr. Steve Ramirez is author of the new book How to Change a Memory,

an Associate Professor of Psychology and Brain Sciences at Boston University in Boston, Massachusetts.

Welcome to Science Friday.

Thank you so much.

It's awesome to be back.

Nice to have you back.

You know, I think that a lot of us think of our memories as constant, a file.

We can go back to retrieve it exactly as it was stored.

But that's not what happens, is it?

Yeah, we tend to think of memories nowadays as a kind of reconstruction of the past.

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