The Neuroscience of Forgetting, Reconsolidation, and the Conceptual Architecture of a Targeted Memory Deletion System (TMDS)

It is becoming evident that forgetting is an active and adaptive mechanism that facilitates cognitive flexibility through the regulation of the stability of the stored experiences. The complex and wide spectrum of molecular catalyses and circuit-based activities determines the preservation of memories, their impairment, or availability for updating. Similar studies have been done on memory reconsolidation with the idea that retrieval with moderate prediction error creates a window of temporary destabilisation where the underlying engram can be modified. Nevertheless, none of the existing frameworks combine active forgetting mechanisms, accessibility of engrams, dynamics of reconsolidation and emerging neurotechnology in a single model of targeted memory deletion. This summary presents the multi-scale findings, such as synaptic destabilisation and engram remodelling, prediction-error gating, and non-invasive neuromodulation, to describe the conceptual bases of engineered memory modification. It is based on this platform that we suggest that Targeted Memory Deletion System (TMDS) can be implemented in four phases consisting of engram identification, controlled destabilisation, focused interference during reconsolidation and validation of deletion versus suppression. The structure puts into the limelight the biological possibility as well as the ethical limitation of selective memory editing. Combined, these observations put active forgetting, rather than a failure of retention, as a mechanistic gateway in which the clinically precise adjustment of memory might be enabled.