10 Sci-Fi Movies That Got The Science Right

In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Jim Carrey attempts to remove the painful memories he carries of an ex who did the same thing to her memories. While there is no current technology available to remove memories in the way shown in the film, the way it would work was accurately depicted.

If someone were to target and remove a memory, it would be necessary to target a protein synthesis in the brain. Once this was done, it would have to be blocked while a memory was triggered — doing this would theoretically block that memory from being accessed again.

The physical makeup of our brains changes over time as we acquire new memories. On an incredibly small scale, new connections are made within the neural structure of a brain, so it is theoretically possible to identify a specific connection as it's formed and sever it.

The brain would then heal around the broken links and could then form new memories, but the 'deleted' ones would be forever lost to the patient. The only thing keeping this from becoming a reality is the creation of equipment sensitive enough to identify and block the necessary pathways, but ultimately, it is theoretically possible.