The stress of warfare can induce dissociative amnesia, where the stress and trauma can actually suppress memories. While blocking out the bad memories might be handy, sometimes the disorder can suppress years of memories, leaving the person without knowledge of their family or friends. A group of military researchers are close to announcing progress of a brain implant which could help restore these memories, iflscience.com reported.

Justin Sanchez, DARPA program manager, discussed the possibilities for this device at a conference for the Center for Brain Health at the University of Texas. The project has been dubbed Restoring Active Memory, or RAM.

“If you have been injured in the line of duty and you can’t remember your family, we want to be able to restore those kinds of functions,” Sanchez said.

If successful, this initiative would be the first to demonstrate that memories of people, facts, and events can be restored once lost. Regaining memories wouldn’t just be helpful for those who have experienced war, but it could also be used as a treatment for Alzheimer’s disease.

Experiments have shown that scientists can bolster short term memory in animal models .

"The idea is to restore a function back to normal or near normal of the memory processing areas of the brain so that the person can access their formed memories, and so that they can form new memories as needed," said Robert Hampton of Wake Forest University.

Of course, there are ethical concerns to address. Arthur Caplan serves as a medical ethicist to DARPA, though neuroscience is not his realm of expertise. He cautions that memories are a large part of a person’s identity and this could have large, unforeseen consequences.