Somewhere tonight, someone — make that millions of someones — will wake up in desperate terror, reliving the horror of a traumatic event. The someones will range from combat veterans and abuse survivors to witnesses to mass-shootings and victims of natural disasters.

Right now, there’s nothing they can do except let the panic dissipate, like waiting out a summer thunderstorm. But in the near future, a remedy might be literally within reach, thanks to landmark memory research by Ed Meloni ’91.

Picture this: Sitting on the bedstand of that someone is a xenon-gas inhaler. The sufferer breathes deeply from the inhaler. And poof: Not only is the traumatic memory gone, but so is the associated and sometimes debilitating condition known as post-traumatic stress disorder.

Ed Meloni ’91 speaks to students in Professor of Neuroscience Nancy Koven’s course on embodied cognition during his mid-March visit as the College Key Distinguished Alumnus in Residence. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

In any given year, more than eight million Americans suffer from PTSD, which develops in some people who have experienced a traumatic personal event. Most people probably know something about PTSD through its depiction in popular culture, particularly war movies. Early on, in 1946, there was the post-World War II movie Best Years of Their Lives, then movies like Coming Home, Born on the Fourth of July, and The Hurt Locker, all of which portray PTSD sufferers.

The nightmares and flashbacks — two — feel very real. In one way, they are, and that’s the key to Meloni’s research on xenon gas as a potential treatment.

at Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital, where he works alongside , director of the hospital’s Behavioral Genetics Laboratory. During his visit to �ֲ���ý in March as the College Key’s Distinguished Alumnus in Residence, Meloni joined neuroscience classes, met with students, and delivered an evening lecture. He and I spoke for about an hour.

Researchers, Meloni explained, used to believe that “recalling a memory was like reading a file.” It was read, then put back. “We thought memories were immutable.” Meloni and other scientists have shown that’s not the case. “Our memories can be changed; new information can be integrated.”

(In fact, Meloni says, “our memories are probably not faithful representations of what really happened,” which has great implications for the reliability of crime eyewitnesses, a field of research by �ֲ���ý psychology professor Amy Douglass.)

This process of memory retrieval and updating is known as reconsolidation, and Meloni is an expert in the field. In 2014, he and colleagues at McLean showed that xenon gas can block the reconsolidation of fearful memories in lab rats, effectively eliminating the fear. The discovery garnered national attention for its promise to end PTSD suffering.

Now, the promise is getting close to reality.

PTSD can affect military service members who experience a traumatic event in combat. (U.S. Air Force photo/Tech. Sgt. Nadine Barclay)

For a discovery that could bear directly on human life, the route to finding it was “indirect,” Meloni says. “It was chance and serendipity.” (And, we would add, also some creative thinking on his part.)

As the story goes, a colleague of Meloni’s was presenting research data at a conference, where he learned that a medical gas company was interested in providing a device that would allow scientists to use xenon gas in their rat-model experiments on neurodegenerative diseases.

“You can’t just get a rat to put a mask on.”

The device was needed because “gases are hard to work with” in research that uses a rat model, Meloni explains. “There are a lot of intricacies with gas delivery. It’s not as simple as giving a drug. You can’t just get a rat to put a mask on.”

So the medical gas company funded a research apparatus at McLean, the first of its kind in the world, to test the effects of xenon gas on a rat model.

In terms of its general medical use, xenon is hardly new; though expensive, it’s considered a superior anesthetic and is used in diagnostic imaging. And in recent years, new research indicated that xenon could be “neuroprotective” in the brain, Meloni says, a general term meaning that it might protect nerve cells from the kind of damage found in neurodegenerative diseases and traumatic brain injuries, such as concussion.

The unique research device in place, Meloni was initially part of an unrelated study that yielded “a strong signal” that xenon was indeed neuroprotective. Specifically, xenon is an “NMDA receptor antagonist” that protects the brain from an insult, glutamate excitotoxicity.

That led Meloni to wonder: If xenon is an NMDA receptor antagonist, it should block learning and memory because that’s the outcome when animals are given drugs that block the NMDA receptor. “They don’t learn,” he says. “Or, they stop fearing something they learned.”

“I just wanted to test that,” Meloni says. And among myriad tests involving xenon, rats, and fear, three results proved pivotal. First, they found that giving xenon gas to rats prevented them from developing a certain fear, in this case the fear of a mild shock. “We blocked the learning of fear,” Meloni recalls.

“I was floored,” Meloni says. “That was the home run.”

At this point, Meloni’s expertise in memory reconsolidation kicked in. He thought, “What if the animals are already afraid? Can xenon block a memory that was already there?”

So Meloni decided to pair the administration of gas with the reactivation of a fearful memory (in this case, a mild shock) that the rats had learned by Pavlovian association. When the fear was reactivated, in this case by the sound of a tone previously paired with the shock, the rats were immediately exposed to xenon gas. Tested a few days later — even weeks later —  they did not show fear when the tone was presented.

“I was floored,” Meloni says. “That was the home run.”

Xenon gas fills a discharge tube shaped like the element’s atomic symbol. (Photograph by Pslawinski [CC BY-SA 2.5], via Wikimedia Commons)

Last summer, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office gave Meloni and fellow researcher Marc Kaufman a — essentially a patent approval — for using xenon gas to treat PTSD. The biotech firm Nobilis Therapeutics has licensed the patent and seeks to develop a hand-held medical device for self-administration of xenon.

The hand-held device “is absolutely critical,” Meloni says. “If a medical professional identifies that you might benefit from xenon therapy, you want to administer it as soon as the traumatic memory is reactivated, which happens “organically, out in the real world,” Meloni notes, in nightmares, flashbacks, or by exposure to cues that remind the patient of the traumatic event, much like when the tone is presented to the fear-conditioned rats. “That’s when we think you’re going to get the most therapeutic effect.”

Of course, FDA approval is still required. “Up until now, there’s been no FDA-approved way to administer xenon gas aside from an elaborate anesthesia machine” in a medical setting, Meloni explains. At the moment, Meloni and colleagues are awaiting the go-ahead from the FDA to begin clinical human trials at McLean.

John Kelsey “activated my brain,” Meloni says.

If Meloni has shown smart and creative thinking in his xenon research, it’s safe to say those abilities were cultivated by his �ֲ���ý professors. A student in the days before �ֲ���ý developed its neuroscience program, Meloni designed his own interdisciplinary major to combine interests in biology and psychology.

Meloni wanted to study the brain, and “psychology alone didn’t quite fit the bill because the brain is a biological organism. Everything of the mind is derived from the biology of the brain — our cognition, how we feel — so I went with biology of the brain plus psychology: biopsychology.”

On the bio side, mentors included Pam Baker ’69, now retired, and Lee Abrahamsen. On the psych side, it was John Kelsey. (Also retired, Kelsey was recently honored with the creation of a new endowed professorship in his name, the John E. Kelsey Professorship in Neuroscience.)

As a faculty mentor, John Kelsey “activated my brain,” says Ed Meloni ’91. Here, at the 2014 Mount David Summit, Kelsey hugs friend and colleague Kathy Low, professor of psychology. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Kelsey “activated my brain,” Meloni says. “He forced you to think constructively and creatively and to problem-solve, to figure it out.”

For Meloni, a common denominator among his professors was “friendliness. �ֲ���ý professors take the time to get to know you personally and make sure you’re absorbing the material. They’re teachers, plus something more.”

Those �ֲ���ý qualities are invoked a lot because they’re valuable.  “For an underclassman, that’s just so big. It’s so inspiring. It just resonates.”

Edward Meloni ’91

Can xenon gas treat post-traumatic stress disorder?

Various media outlets including Newsweek and The Boston Globe reported on research by neuroscientist Edward Meloni ’91 suggesting that xenon gas could be used to treat post-traumatic stress disorder and other memory-related disorders.

Meloni and his team’s findings were first published in the article “Xenon Impairs Reconsolidation of Fear Memories in a Rat Model of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)” in the journal PLOS ONE.

Xenon gas fills a discharge tube shaped like the element’s atomic symbol. (Photograph by Pslawinski [CC BY-SA 2.5], via Wikimedia Commons)

It turns out that “every time you reactivate a memory — that is, recall it — it’s susceptible to modification,” explains Meloni.

reporter Douglas Main that once retrieved, “the memory can also be changed or added to, in a process called reconsolidation.” Meloni says that the gas “prevents a memory from being re-encoded, which may allow it — or its emotional significance — to begin to fade.”

He tells Newsweek that “we really think we blocked this process of reconsolidation.”

Meloni, who earned a doctorate in neuroscience at Yale in 2000, is an assistant psychologist at Harvard’s McLean Hospital and an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

At McLean, he does his research in the Behavioral Genetics Lab program, headed up by Professor of Psychiatry Bill Carlezon ’86. (And, as Meloni reports with pride, he and Carlezon “were both students of John Kelsey,” professor emeritus of psychology.)

Peter Lasagna

Diversity, inclusion and lacrosse

�ֲ���ý’ head lacrosse coach Peter Lasagna writes a column for Inside Lacrosse, and his February piece addresses his .

While two of the best NCAA players are students of color (and are on the magazine’s cover), “featuring [Lyle] Thompson and [Myles] Jones does not mean lacrosse has achieved racial nirvana,” Lasagna writes.

Lasagna recalled what happened when, in 2012, professional player Jovan Miller, who is black, boycotted the equipment manufacturer Warrior for using the hashtag “ninjaplease,” the word “ninja” being a proxy for the N-word, according to some definitions.

“The backlash [against Miller] exposed the most ignorant intersection of lacrosse and American culture,” Lasagna writes. “Let’s be properly proud of progress made without falling prey to the disease of short historical memory. Measurable improvement does not mean we’re finished working on increased access and opportunity for all.”

Men’s lacrosse coach Peter Lasagna speaks to the team during a game in March 2014. (Sarah Crosby/�ֲ���ý College)

Hilary Christensen

Truth from the tooth

Scientists have long known that they can infer an animal’s diet by looking at its teeth. For example, the heavily pitted surfaces of a squirrel’s teeth tell us that it has been chomping nuts.

But can the pattern of scratches and pits on one species’ teeth, like the squirrel’s, indicate the diet of a very different animal, even a fossil mammal with no living relatives?

The pattern of “microwear” on one species’ teeth can be used to infer the diet of another species, even an extinct animal like the cave bear, Ursus spelaeus, whose jaw is shown here. (Photograph by Didier Descouens [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons)

Her paper, “Similar Associations of Tooth Microwear and Morphology Indicate Similar Diet across Marsupial and Placental Mammals,” in the journal PLOS ONE, offers a way of “assigning a general dietary category to an animal with a truly unknown ecology.”

After comparing and contrasting the “microwear” — tiny scratches and pits — on the teeth of various animals, Christensen developed a flow chart that can reveal the diet of almost any type of animal, whether mammal or marsupial.

Christensen’s flow chart shows how a scientist could infer an animal’s “feeding guild” by knowing its body size, tooth morphology and microwear.

Let’s say that a scientist only had access to a museum specimen of an extinct species.

By knowing the general size of the specimen, and having access to at least one molar, albeit fossilized, the scientist could infer whether the animal browsed on trees and shrubs, grazed on grass, fed on fruits, ate insects or devoured meat.

“It’s a very powerful tool,” Christensen says.

 MLK Day at �ֲ���ý

A different kind of commemoration

In its coverage of the college’s MLK Day observance, the between �ֲ���ý’ founding ideals, alumnus Benjamin Mays ’20, and King.

Reporter Kelley Bouchard interviewed Associate Dean of Students James Reese, a key figure in the college’s MLK Day history, who noted that Mays’ relationship with King didn’t end when King graduate from Morehouse, where Mays was president.

“King would call on Mays for advice and to discuss approaches to protests, so [their] bond was even stronger than the mentor role he had during King’s college years,” Reese said.

Meanwhile, a column by Rick Cohen in Nonprofit Quarterly as an example of the “different kind of MLK Day commemoration” that is needed today.

The �ֲ���ý MLK Day theme was “From Selma to Ferguson: 50 Years of Nonviolent Dissent.”

Cohen wrote: “In 2015, we should all be showing courage to analyze, address and attack overt, structural, institutional and implicit racism” on MLK Day and guard against “making his holiday one that doesn’t forthrightly address issues of race.”

Jason Perkins ’97 and Gary Dzen ’05

A brewmaster’s interlude

Alumni were on both sides of a came up with its Interlude beer.

Gary Dzen ’05 writes the Globe‘s 99 Bottles beer column, and he interviewed Jason Perkins ’97, Allagash brewmaster, about how a “rogue yeast” is part of the beer’s story.

Jason Perkins ’97 of Allagash Brewing Company, photographed in 2008 at the brewery’s headquarters in Portland, Maine. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College).

The yeast, a particular strain of Brettanomyces, spoiled a batch of beer some years ago. But as Dzen writes, “the uninvited yeast, once isolated, can actually make some pretty great beer.”

He writes:

“[The yeast] works slowly, giving off tropical fruit character as it chews through the beer. Some strains of Brettanomyces are known for the funky, barnyard notes they impart into a brew. In this Allagash beer those notes are present but overshadowed by passion fruit and pineapple, according to brewmaster Jason Perkins.”

Dzen’s verdict? “It’s a little sour but mostly fruity, a little funky but not enough to remind you of wet socks. This is a big beer (9.5 percent alcohol by volume), but you shouldn’t be afraid to walk up and shake its hand.”