Weizmann Institute scientists were able to quickly erase long-term memories in rats. "This is a sticking a stick in the wheels of a tiny molecular engine that strengthens memory"
What happens in our mind when we learn and remember? Is the learned information burned as a physical change in neural networks, a kind of writing engraved on a wax board? Prof. Yadin Dodai, Head of the Department of Neurobiology at the Weizmann Institute of Science, and his research partners, recently discovered that the processes of storing long-term memory in the cerebral cortex are much more dynamic, and require the constant operation of a sort of 'molecular engine', which preserves the change caused by learning in the neural network. It seems that if you stop the operation of this tiny engine, pieces of which are found in every nerve cell, the memory ceases to exist. The findings, recently published in the scientific journal Science, undermine the accepted concept regarding the stability of long-term memories and the way in which they are stored in the brain, and may pave the way for innovative future treatment of memory disorders.
Prof. Dudai and research student Reut Shema, together with Prof. Todd Sektor from the State University of New York (SUNY) Medical Center, trained rats to avoid certain foods. Then, inject a substance that blocks a certain protein into the area of the brain's cortex that stores taste memories. The protein in question is a type of enzyme, i.e. a molecule whose action causes structural and functional changes in other proteins, which are used as target proteins. When the action of the enzyme is paralyzed, the target proteins are expected to return to their state before the change. Prof. Dudai and his research partners started from the premise that the enzyme in question is a kind of 'engine' that works continuously to renew the changes created by learning in the proteins in the nerve cells in the cerebral cortex. Therefore, if the operation of the motor (enzyme) is blocked, the changes in these proteins will be erased and the memory will be erased with them. And so it did happen: after a single injection of the inhibitor into the cerebral cortex, the rats quickly forgot what they had learned about the taste. The technique worked on memories of different flavors long after those memories were formed. Furthermore, all the signs indicated that the memories had probably been erased forever.
"The method we used is similar to sticking a peg in the wheels of a 'molecular engine' that needs to work continuously to preserve the memory," says Prof. Dudai. "When this 'engine' stops working, the memories seem to cease to exist." In other words, memory is not the result of a one-time change in the neural networks, but a dynamic process that the brain needs to fuel and maintain continuously.
Among other things, these findings raise the possibility that in the future it will be possible to develop new medicinal approaches to increase memory and stabilize it.
12 תגובות
Idan Segev on the attempt of a group of scientists from all over the world to build a complete human brain that works inside a computer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0AR1cUlhTk
Two amazing and fascinating lectures by the head of the project Prof. Henry Markram:
http://ditwww.epfl.ch/cgi-perl/EPFLTV/home.pl?page=start_video&lang=2&connected=0&id=365&video_type=10&win_close=0
http://neuroinformatics2008.org/congress-movies/Henry%20Markram.flv/view
A fascinating course in Hebrew on the topic of the human brain:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=D8C99F67C81778E8
And for dessert:
http://www.themedical.co.il/Article.aspx?itemID=1868
https://www.hayadan.org.il/the-singularity-is-near-2106084/
And it is right on the edge, there is no doubt that this field is going to cause a global revolution in the coming decades.
for everyone,
The future is going to be that we won't need humans anymore (in the biological sense), because artificial quantum neural networks will replace us and be much smarter than us.
To Danny, I see that you have a hard time with the fact that one day (in tens or hundreds of years...who talked about tomorrow?) it will be possible to delete a memory, add or re-edit it in a different order!
This is what is probably going to happen if they want it..but the internet also once scared people before the computer and before them the television who didn't know how to digest it..with the radio it was easier!
Not to mention a combination of memory cards inside the head or the possibility of connecting to an external memory directly to the personal memory in the head, preferably via transmission, but it is also possible with some USB opening behind the ear or inside one of the teeth or in the nose!!
This is going to be the future if they don't come up with something more sophisticated! A person walks by a house and can immediately see in his imagination the contents of the house being broadcast outside or any other information as mentioned above regarding travel routes. When he arrives in an unfamiliar area with a memory request, a ready memory will be transmitted to him that will make the place "familiar" and allow him to travel freely as if he were traveling on this route every day and here the deletion process is essential, because who would want to carry around a short-term memory that has no use beyond a certain moment? Therefore, immediately at the end of consumption, it will be possible to delete that memory and make room in the human memory whose volume will surely increase over time!!
This is of course only a fraction of the possible applications... of course in the distant future, maybe very far for future generations!!
The content of the experiment is very far from justifying the sensational title.
A. Who determined that this is a memory deletion and not a new memory creation (let's say)?
B. Who determined that it is a deletion and not the making of the memory temporarily inaccessible (meaning it is possible that the supposedly deleted memory will reappear someday)
C. And the most important thing: a primitive memory of tastes is not similar to a human memory created by absorbing visual, sensory or auditory experiences and processing them in the brain into a long-term memory. Preferences for different tastes are ingrained in our genes, so it's not necessarily a matter of memory. Experiments have shown, for example, that fetuses in the womb prefer a sweet taste over a bitter taste. It's certainly not because they have a traumatic memory of eating a spoiled milk delicacy. In short, a little less sensationalism and fabrications and a little more scientific standards wouldn't hurt.
This research has no importance in my eyes, and those who expect to find a jar of pills on the shelf tomorrow morning to erase the trauma of failing a test, being injured in the army or falling missiles in war can forget about it (without a pill)...
Memory in the brain is basically connections. This means that if you delete all the connections in the brain, you reach a situation where you have a human being - a plant (that is, he has no intelligence). Even a baby has basic definitions of intelligence that were defined in the womb, and there is a situation for such a person that all the centers in the brain will be reversed. ZA that everything will be messy with him, and he will think in a completely different way than an ordinary person.
Since there are 10 to the power of 15 connections it is as if there are 10 to the power of 15 data that can be saved
The fear of the applications of science is justified in principle, but nevertheless it reminded me of the story about the serial killer I read this week, who murdered people "inspired by the chess board", I don't remember where it was, he murdered about 60 people over the years with the goal of reaching 64 as the number of squares on the board. Is the chess board or the chess game to blame for the murders?
Well, two things:
1) It's fascinating. (As everyone here says - when we reach the stage of working with human memory - it will be cool!)
2) To Eli from the first response - this is indeed another dangerous measure. But in an age where there is such a large variety of ways to destroy people - I would not be very worried about one.
It should be remembered that this is associative learning, one type of learning from a variety of other dimensions that animals are able to experience in response to various occurrences in the external world. The memory in question associates a new taste with a feeling of aversion to the taste following subsequent manipulation. The kinase (enzyme) in question whose sequential action made the animal forget the new taste that is associated with something bad, the animal stopped shying away from the new taste.
What is erased is the new associative memory the animal has learned.
By the way, one can damage the personality itself in different ways, such as drinking alcohol (in response to the second responder) or physical injury, and there are of course many examples of people whose personality has changed due to physical injury or an event such as a stroke in certain areas of the brain.
It is worth going back in the archives to 29.6 to the research of Dr. Henry Markram and Dr. Misha Tsodiks from the Weizman Institute from the same neurobiology department on the learning process and the formation of pathways in the brain that they were looking for! It is possible that in the current study there is an answer to part of the question... because if a learning memory was erased! It is likely that you should trace the deletion process to get on the memory learning track!!
And yes, this brings back to the picture my idea of burying a memory in the brain to save learning time.. This means that the mouse will be careful of what you want even without going through the process of remembering! Of course, if this happens by a substance that penetrates the brain (perhaps by an infiltrating virus?) then methods are opened here to remove pests from places where they are not wanted!!
The cockroach will not enter the house because in his memory Schwarzenegger is waiting for him with an armed man from head to toe!! The cockroach will sweat just by looking through a window ..and will immediately run away for his life! Likewise other mosquitoes who have not yet understood the hint and other enemies (did someone say Arabs?) !!
All the best to the Weizmann Institute that he will make Bush sweat fairly and understand (as I mentioned in that article) that stem cells are the appetizer when they explain to him what the Weizmann Institute is medicating to bring about the change of memory!!
What's more, the possibility of turning people into believers and thus saving thousands of sweaty sermons ..and creating the paradox of acquired memory !! Because science may develop a method that will eliminate it in the future and make it possible to control humans just as information technology made it possible to establish huge dictatorships such as Germany!!
There is no need to panic too much because it is a fact that that Germany has been wiped out and now we are in the reliable hands of 11 families who actually control what is going on in Israel as well as other world rich people who determine anyway what will happen and where! So don't get too excited!
And of course on the other side many times more possibilities of memory implants for different needs are opened (with consent and payment)..and here really the sky is only the first limit..including for example feeling the experience of Armstrong walking on the moon as if you were there!! And implanting a memory from different periods in history as if you were there combined with effects and more and more and more... infinite positive and negative possibilities open up!! Going to be interesting in the future!!
Is it possible to visit the neurobiology department at Weizmann? The future department?
What is man if not his memories?
Without memory, how will he know what belongs to him and what happened to him!
It was not clarified whether all the long-term memory of the mouse was deleted or only the one related to the taste! And if so, how did they manage to target the neutralization of this specific memory??
You can erase people's memories, but not the personality itself (which is the very connections in the brain).
It's explosive, it's a shame we don't talk about it
You can delete people like that