Amnestics to enhance memory

[Jabberwocky]

This passage from Neuroscience of Clinical Psychiatry, The The Pathophysiology of Behavior and Mental Illness, 1st Edition Copyright ©2007 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, was surprising to me:

Alcoholic Blackouts
Alcoholic blackouts occur when someone has consumed too much alcohol and awakens without memories of what happened the night before. It is believed that the high blood level of alcohol disrupts the consolidation of short-term memories into long-term memories. The drinker failed to preserve lasting images of the party because long-term memories were never formed. This can happen with short-acting hypnotics and benzodiazepines as well. Amazingly, memories formed before drinking are actually enhanced by alcohol. That is, drinking after learning actually improves recall compared to not drinking. It is possible that memories already consolidated are stored in a more pristine state, because there is less interference from new memories during intoxication.

Does anyone have experience or data about using drugs with amnestic properties to enhance memories stored before before imbibing?

 

[Ham-milton]

very interesting; that'll make it so much easier for college studies everywhere to say "I'll study before the party, get drunk, and then do better tommorow"

and they say only amps are good for studying!

 

[Coolio]

That definitely explains a thing or two about college culture.

 

[Jamshyd]

I will be the first to attest that studying language then taking any of: Ketamine, Flunitrazepam, or Alcohol (in order of efficacy) makes me completely fluent in what I learnt the day before.

I have only discovered flunitrazepam's effect. Note that this definitely does not work if one is dependant on benzos as I was earlier this year. But now that I'm free of addiction, taking the occasional benzo most definitely enhances memories formed before, and this is especially pronounced with flunitrazepam.

 

[Beenhead]

I want to hear some data before i start drinking to ace my p-chem classes!

 

[Jamshyd]

I must note that the enhancement in my case was only in linguistic memory and reasoning - I found it does not really help with anything else.

Then again language is sort of what I'm best at, so I don't know if it might boost arithmetic skill in mathematically-minded people and so on...

To share an anecdote: A couple of years ago I was studying Biblical Hebrew at university, and I had several weaknesses (for some reason this particular language never really glued together, unlike modern Hebrew for example). When I started taking Ketamine the nights before my classes, I would seriously kick ass.

But as they say, "Data" is not the plural of "Anecdote"

 

[Sturnam]

does the article talk about how moderate drinking affects memory?

i assume that blackouts facilitate the most recall, but for those of us partial to our memories, maybe there's a middle ground?

also, with my limited use of benzos, i've noticed that the general time around when i first started ingesting benzos begins to get fuzzy, and i even forget some things i did BEFORE i took any. did they say how long test subjects waited before taking an amnestic?