This time I choose to read an article about post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In this article, the author talks PTSD and how it affects the individuals. PTSD is a condition that can happen after witnessing a disturbing or frightening event. This is seen most commonly in people in the military, police officers, or firefighters. This disorder completely changes the person’s life. They become so traumatized by what they saw that they can’t forget it or move past it. This is usually treated by giving the individual doses of Propranolol. Propranolol works by blocking adrenaline which is pumped throughout your body when people get frightened. Researchers believe that when it is blocked, it changes the way your brain stores that certain memory. But there are a lot of ethical issues surrounding this drug. The author talks about how he feels that every memory we have is important. Even the bad memories, like the ones that cause people to have PTSD, are important. One line in the article that I like is when he compared our personalities to a rug. He said that a rug is woven one knot at a time, with each knot woven into the others and this is just like our personalities. All these different memories we have, shape our personalities. If you take out one memory or change the way we remember it that will cause everything else to also change. This relates to my topic because this is the same argument I’m trying to make. All of the memories we have make us who we are today.
Mirkes, Renée. "DOES PHARMACOLOGICALLY-ALTERED MEMORY CHANGE PERSONAL IDENTITY?." Ethics & Medicine: An International Journal of Bioethics 26.3 (2010): 175-187. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 23 Jan. 2011.
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