Washington, April 28 (IANS) Can war veterans, rape victims and other people who have witnessed horrific crimes have their traumatic memories erased? Scientists believe so.

 
 "I think we will be able to alter memories someday to reduce the trauma from our brains," said senior study author, David Glanzman, professor of integrative biology and physiology at the University of California, Los Angeles.
 
 Glanzman, a cellular neuroscientist, and his colleagues report that they have eliminated, or at least substantially weakened, a long-term memory in both the marine snail known as Aplysia and neurons (nerve cells) in a lab, the Journal of Neuroscience reports.
 
 They discovered that the long-term memory for sensitization in the marine snail can be erased by inhibiting the activity of a specific protein kinase.
 
 It is a class of molecules that modifies proteins by chemically adding to them a phosphate (an inorganic chemical), which changes the proteins' structure and activity, according to a California statement.
 
 The protein kinase is called PKM (protein kinase M), a member of the class known as protein kinase C (PKC), which is associated with memory.
 
 The research has important potential implications for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder, as well as drug addiction, in which memory plays an important role, and perhaps Alzheimer's disease and other long-term memory disorders.
 
 "Almost all the processes that are involved in memory in the snail also have been shown to be involved in memory in the brains of mammals," said Glanzman, who added that the human brain is far too complicated to study directly.