Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) reported this weekend in the journal Science that they succeeded in implanting a memory of an event that was not present in the brains of mice.
In the science fiction film "Fateful Memory" (1990), the plot of which takes place in 2084, the worker Douglas Quaid asks to go on a trip to Mars. Instead of the trip itself, he goes to the offices of the Recall company, where they offer him to implant memories of the fictional vacation in his mind, as if he had experienced it himself. He can also choose whether he wants a relaxing vacation, an adventure trip or even an adventure vacation as an undercover agent sent there on a mission. Quaid (Arnold Schwarzenegger) chooses the third option, and from there the stormy plot of the successful action film begins to unfold. However, 23 years after the creation of the film, the idea behind it already seems much more scientific and much less fictional.
Light in the head
Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) reported this weekend in the journal Science that they succeeded in implanting a memory of an event that was not present in the brains of mice. The researchers took a mouse, placed it in an unfamiliar room and gave it some time to learn the environment. This part of the experiment was done in a relaxed environment, and the mice displayed completely normal behavior. However, these are not completely ordinary mice. The researchers used genetically modified mice, or rather optogenetically modified mice. Some of their brain cells have been implanted with a gene derived from a luminescent algae, and it causes the cells to glow with blue light when they are active. Moreover, this system allows the cells to be activated in response to light coming from an external source. The genetic engineering that allows optically to see exactly in which cells certain processes are taking place in the brain, as well as to activate by optical means these cells (and therefore the processes they are involved in), is a powerful research tool. In this experiment, the researchers from MIT focused on a certain area in the hippocampus - a gland in the brain that is also known to be responsible, among other things, for memory processes, learning and orientation in space.
Deceptive memory
While the researchers let the mice scan the new room, they carefully examined the bluish flashes and recorded the cells involved in creating the first impression - and the memory. The next day, the researchers took these mice, and placed them in another room, also non-threatening. So they activated the cells that were active when receiving the first chamber in the memory (shine directly on the relevant brain cells using a sensitive optical fiber), then gave the mice a painful electric shock to their paws. The idea was to create an identification between the same first chamber and pain. On the third day, the mice were returned to the same first room. Even though the environment there was as relaxed as before, as soon as they were placed there, the mice froze in place in shock - a reaction well known to researchers when the mice feel fear. In this case - fear of the pain of the electric shock. Although they received the electric shock in a completely different place, the fact that it was done while activating the cells associated with the memory of that room, created the association between the place and the feeling. In other words - the mice remembered very well that they received the electric shock in this room, even though this never happened. To verify the truth of the findings, the researchers repeated them with transgenic control mice, whose brain cells cannot be activated by light. In these mice, no fear response was recorded when returning to the familiar room.
From vaccine to memory
The research was led by Nobel Prize laureate in medicine (1987), Susumu Tonegawa. He received the award for research in immunology, in which he showed how - despite the limited number of genes - the immune system is able to produce a huge variety of antibodies by mixing parts of genes. Later he moved to memory research, and today he leads the group dealing with the field at MIT, which is one of the leading in the world. Last year, the group managed to create a fake memory in mice for the first time, in a similar, but simpler experiment. The experiment that has now been reported in Science proves definitively that it is indeed possible to plant a certain memory in the brain, but for now mainly thanks to the environmental context. The next step will probably be to also create a brain stimulation that simulates the electric shock, and then cause the fear response in a mouse that never received such a shock, anywhere.
The mouse is allowed
Mice are not humans, even though we are and they are identical in 97.5% of our active DNA. The remaining two and a half percent are still a whole world of genetic differences, which are expressed in the noticeable difference in the external appearance, in the lifestyles and above all - in the brain activity. As far as is known, mice usually do not know how to read, write, draw, send text messages or express complex emotions. As far as is known, they are also not blessed with false memories, until a scientist comes and implants them in their brains. In humans, however, false memories are a common phenomenon. It is very likely that two people who were, for example, at your wedding, will each remember that Aunt Bethia wore a dress of a different color. When two workers reconstruct an argument between them, the result may be very different from the original, not because one of the parties is lying, but because in the reconstruction both the imagination intervenes, and the additions or changes that our brains put in the memory, to allow us to live with it. Another problem - and perhaps the most serious of all - is the reliance on human memory in a criminal trial. The members of the American Innocence Project claim that three-quarters of the wrongful convictions in a criminal trial - that is, which later turned out to be wrong based on DNA evidence - were based on human eyewitness testimony. The witnesses who led to these convictions did not lie (at least most of them), but told what they remembered. The problem is that the human memory as mentioned is open to various manipulations that our brain does to it.
Based on the new research, it is very likely that, as with mice, our memory may well be vulnerable to man-made manipulations as well. This development has great potential - if you can plant memories, you can also plant knowledge in the brain. It is possible to heal traumas - erase bad memories and plant positive ones in their place. But this technique can also be used for various negative manipulations on the brain, from the criminal field to influencing public opinion, from military use to implanting memories that will make us buy more. As in many other cases - the development of scientific knowledge and new technology creates weighty moral and ethical dilemmas. In the meantime, as mentioned, the method works on transgenic mice, but what begins in laboratory animals may reach humans faster than expected.
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Political assassinations for years through planting memories and suggestion
Indeed a method of transferring traumas from one to another
Long way. Given that the branching network of one memory contains many other associatively related memories. Any manipulation will also affect other memories. But not sure that is significant. Such rough manipulation is already done today in Parkinson's patients without significant damage. As one who thinks he has succeeded in understanding how memories including their emotional and intellectual labeling are represented in the brain. I think that right now we need to find a single nerve fiber that leads from the specific memory to the amygdala, let's say that produces the feeling of fear. This is the fiber that actually represents the emotional labeling of the memory, it can be burned or weakened to remove the negative emotion associated with the memory. Although the solution may be short-term because the mental labeling of the memory that will remain may re-feed the negative emotion. Burning or weakening such a fiber will not affect other memories or their tagging, at least I think so.
Mike:
I did not write that a person should volunteer for the process - I wrote that he should volunteer. A situation of traumatic memory can be one of the situations in which a person would want to volunteer, but from here to the fantasy written at the end of the article (which is what I was referring to) the road is long.
Erasing the trauma is not necessarily simple either. For example, with the method you describe, you first have to search the brain and find the relevant links (there can be more than one link and you have to find them all), then you have to make sure that their manipulation does not harm anything else, and only if you manage to make sure of this can you try to erase the traumatic memory.
Please note that there were also control experiments, in which the mice went through exactly the same process (first chamber - second chamber - current - first chamber) except for the operation of the current, and there the reaction observed in the experimental group was not observed at all.
I agree that if there was no control group, this would sound rather dubious
Mr. Rothschild. There is no need to volunteer a person for the process. All that is needed is to find the conductors that link between a specific memory and the nerve cells that express the negative emotion about it. Then cut them or weaken them, and that's how you have a solution to traumatic memories. It is a shame that the study did not examine what changes occurred in the cells or synapses after the electric shock, this would have shown the connection between memory and emotion.
Copying memories from animal to animal may be possible by transplanting the hippocampus from one animal to another. But even if it succeeds, she will lose her identity in favor of the identity of the animal from which the implant came. So there is no solution for Alzheimer's here yet. For a solution to Alzheimer's, it is necessary to copy the hippocampus or any part of the brain that was damaged while the patient is in a relatively good condition, to an artificial or engineered brain. Then replant it.
Maybe the Hebrews were simply afraid of another electric current regardless of the room they were in?
In my opinion - not only will it take a long time for it to reach humans, but there is a significant chance that it will not reach them at all.
Pay attention to the following facts:
1. This is done by inserting electrodes into the mouse's brain, that is, it is an invasive and dangerous treatment
2. Each mouse received a specific treatment in the sense that they tested which areas of its own brain were active in the first chamber. It's not like they studied brain behavior on one mouse and then applied it to another mouse.
3. The above two sections show that the person should first of all volunteer to go through the process, but even then the hardships are far from over. The memory is created by creating a connection between events that actually happened (and which the researchers, as mentioned, studied expressions in the brain). It corresponds to a very limited number of learning abilities. Perhaps it is possible to learn by heart all kinds of tables (such as a table of words and their translation, or events and their dates) by memorizing less, but not without the experimental guinea pig first being exposed to the values appearing in these tables and expressions in his mind being learned by the implanters.
4. I don't have an aunt named Bethia at all
I saw the article in Calcalist and you can see that the reporter does not understand what he is talking about, and neither did I. I came here and I was not disappointed. Thanks.
Dark City - one of the lesser known sci-fi movies and the best that has been made is recommended
Reminds me of the movie "Dark City"
Excellent movie
Fascinating and amazing! Thank you very much for the article! (and on the links!)
Is it possible that we are actually nothing more than an experiment in implanting memories that mice are conducting in us?