Researchers Implant False Memories In Mice 102
sciencehabit writes "Call it 'Total Recall' for mice. A group of neuroscientists say that they've identified a potential mechanism of false memory creation and have planted such a memory in the brain of a mouse. With this knowledge, neuroscientists can start to figure out how many neurons it takes to give us the perception of what's around us and what goes on in our neural wiring when we remember—or misremember—the past."
Download complete (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Download complete (Score:4, Interesting)
You remember the spider that lived in a bush outside your window? Orange body, green legs?
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This is not the Cheese you're looking for.
"The secret is, there is no Cheese..."
Dear Mr. President (Score:2)
SQUEAK! (Score:2)
No they didn't (Score:3, Interesting)
They hijacked the mouse's senses to perceive the room as a different one while being shocked, causing the mouse to be afraid of the wrong room. Interesting, but not a false memory.
Re:No they didn't (Score:5, Interesting)
Regardless, it is pretty interesting that they could pin-point the precise location where the memory of the room was stored and force that negative association at the neuronal level. Not quite an implanted memory, but still cool.
Re: No they didn't (Score:2, Funny)
Most people don't need to be conditioned to cringe at Bieber.
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There was a third room where the fear reaction did not take place.
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Now I know why I scream every time I hear The Beeb.
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Re: No they didn't (Score:1)
They just have a false memory of doing so, implanted by the mice who weren't too thrilled about going through the shock.
Who cut the cheese (Score:2)
And the memory said... (Score:3)
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"More mouse than mouse" is our motto.
But how will a mouse say, "I want more life, fucker!" . . . ?
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To which the reply will be: SQUEAK. [imageshack.us]
The egg hatched... (Score:5, Interesting)
Deckard: Remember when you were six? You and your brother snuck into an empty building through a basement window. You were going to play doctor. He showed you his, but when it got to be your turn you chickened and ran; you remember that? You ever tell anybody that? Your mother, Tyrell, anybody? Remember the spider that lived outside your window? Orange body, green legs. Watched her build a web all summer, then one day there's a big egg in it. The egg hatched... ...and a hundred baby spiders came out... and they ate her.
Rachael: The egg hatched...
Deckard: Yeah...
Rachael:
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Thanks, since this is /. no one knows that quote, let alone the movie where it is from. Next up: a quote from Star Wars.
*Meekly raises hand*
I, um... I had to look it up.
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*Meekly raises hand*
I, um... I had to look it up.
Ooooh...we'll have to punch a hole out of your nerd card.
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GET OUT
HHGTG (Score:5, Funny)
So the mice thought they were supervising a computer program to find the ultimate question of Life the Universe and Everything
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are they sure the mice didnt implant a flase memory of the researchers implanting a false memory?
Ive never been to mars!
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"You take both pills, you'll wake up in bed, and I'll show you how deep the rabbit hole really goes..." [slashdot.org]
The Matrix (Score:3)
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Re:The Matrix (Score:5, Informative)
And where do you think muscle memory is stored?
The memories themselves may be stored in the brain, but what you'd be missing from the Kung-Fu download would be the proprioception [wikipedia.org] mapping for your body. If the original Kung-Fu masters musculature and limb lengths were very much different from the learner, the learner would be more likely to beat himself to death than anyone else.
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All nervous tissue performs processing. Perhaps there is another kind of learning we haven't yet quantitated.
Stop trying to hit me and hit me (Score:2)
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I love how people take a fictional scenario and say why it would not work in the real world.
Right, we *know* why it'd be hard in real life, because we *all* know proprioception is highly individualized and not just included in our DNA with the body plan. Didn't they cover *any* motor-cognitive neuroscience in your high-school gym class?</sarcasm>
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Probably a fair bit is stored in your spinal column - a lot of reflexive actions are processed and reacted to there - for example if you accidentally stick your hand into a hot fire you will probably flinch away before the pain signal reaches your brain. The brain-hand neural transmission delay is about 1/8 of a second, so taking the round trip so would mean your hand had been in the fire for 1/4 second, plus however long it took for your brain to process the input and decide on a course of action. Those
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Muscle memory is still in your brain. However the real issue is you know Kung Fu. But your mussels haven't gotten their proper exercise. So you will probably end up hurting yourself.
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I don't care about philosophy. I just wanna learn Kung Fu.
Traditionally Kung Fu is is at least as much about philosophy as martial arts.
Obligatory Beavis & Butthead (Score:2)
From the "Dream On" episode:
Beavis: "But Master, does not the fire need water too? Does not the mountain need the storm? Does not your scrotum need kicking?"
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Er...I think those arguments predate that movie. If we have to limit ourselves to movies any self-respecting nerd would be quoting Dark Star...
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Er...I think those arguments predate that movie. If we have to limit ourselves to movies any self-respecting nerd would be quoting Dark Star...
Speaking of Star Wars... I haven't read the article, but I assume that they implanted the false memories that the Star Wars had "Episode IV: A New Hope" in the opening of the original release?
This experiment has already been performed rather successfully on nerds, so mice seem like a natural next step.
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Oh, philosophers have been bantering about this ever since the first one got his PhD and was unemployed for the rest of his life, and had nothing else better to do: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_in_a_vat [wikipedia.org]
In philosophy, the brain in a vat is an element used in a variety of thought experiments intended to draw out certain features of our ideas of knowledge, reality, truth, mind, and meaning. It is based on an idea, common to many science fiction stories, that a mad scientist, machine, or other entity might remove a person's brain from the body, suspend it in a vat of life-sustaining liquid, and connect its neurons by wires to a supercomputer which would provide it with electrical impulses identical to those the brain normally receives. According to such stories, the computer would then be simulating reality (including appropriate responses to the brain's own output) and the person with the "disembodied" brain would continue to have perfectly normal conscious experiences without these being related to objects or events in the real world.
The brain in a vat is a contemporary version of the argument given in Hindu Maya illusion, Plato's Allegory of the Cave, Zhuangzi's "Zhuangzi dreamed he was a butterfly", and the evil demon in René Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy.
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>That of course assumes that a thought require a medium, something that only holds true in our perceived space.
Not at all. The statement is not "I have a thought, therefore I am" it's "I think, therefore I am". Thinking, as in proceeding through a sequence of thoughts in a guided manner, is the defining characteristic of a mind. Therefore if you are thinking you must have a mind - i.e. you exist. Of course that says nothing about having a brain or any other medium for the thoughts to occur "in", jus
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Ah, the brain in a vat that essentially ends up in the idea that the only real truth is: I think, therefore I am. That of course assumes that a thought require a medium, something that only holds true in our perceived space.
If you also introduce the concept of being wrong and that someone that is wrong doesn't know that he is wrong. Then you can never prove that a though is correct and the only way to make philosophy (And applied philosophy like math and physics.) relevant again is through pragmatism.
I see.., so, I think I think, therefore I think I am?
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The argument pre-dates that movie by hundreds of years. Descartes first suggested it, although originally instead of robots he had an "evil demon" of course. That's where is famous quote "I think, therefore I am" comes from - everything you perceive may be a lie created by the evil demon to fool you, but the one thing you can be certain of is that since you are having that thought your mind must itself exist.
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No. [wikipedia.org]
Re: They seriously used the SCIENTOLOGY term "engr (Score:2)
Preposterous! (Score:1)
I remember reading about this technique as a way to make people forget about the horrible events that took place while Bill Gates was president by pretending that Clinton had a second term. Supposedly they'd even found a way to make the Windows login screen embed those memories with those `hidden moire flux' patterns. Oddly enough they've actually kept their word on keeping both the presidency and the moire patterns off of Wikipedia, but I doubt that anyone has forgotten...
I mean... just the look on the S
For the memory of a lifetime... (Score:2)
Rekall rekall rekall!
Thanks for the memories! (Score:3, Funny)
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Screw him! Where's the three-breasted mutant prostitute?
That's Strange... (Score:3)
I could have sworn that I already posted a clever reply to this story.
reminds me of the movie total recall (Score:2)
except mars would be a chocolate bar
The NSA are going to love this (Score:2)
Sounds familiar (Score:1)
Isn't this the mainly plot behind Pinky & the Brain?
I for one welcome our new mouse, memory implanted overlords.
Now... (Score:2)
Now when they can explain the mechanism for the occurance of false memories without having to put electrodes in one's brain that will be real news.
Dupe (Score:3)
I remember seeing this story before.
Pffftttt.... (Score:1)
Big deal. Politicians have been using this to the voters in order to get re-elected for decades. How else can some of them be doing it?
I know kung fu (Score:2)
corrected subtitle.
Yein Group Properties (Score:1)
Wait.. (Score:1)
Just Think (Score:1)
When we can fully manipulate the minds of human beings, they'll be able to turn all you atheists into jug-band playing, television contribution pandering, Bible thumping fundamentalist Christians.
And the best part is you won't even remember you were atheists. Shit, we could have 100% church attendance in five years.
Ain't science a bitch?
By the way, this story is a load of shit. They didn't "implant" memories. They tried to activate memories previously memorized, and they ended up with only circumstantial
The teacher's unions will oppose this (Score:2)
If memories can be implanted from outside, then education can be delivered this way, and the services of unionized teachers will no longer be necessary...watch for them to oppose this research and make several ad-hominem attacks on it.
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If memories can be implanted from outside, then education can be delivered this way, and the services of unionized teachers will no longer be necessary...watch for them to oppose this research and make several ad-hominem attacks on it.
Unionized teachers, no. But there will always be room for real teachers who do something more than raw data transfer.
Ahah! (Score:2)
NLP on different level (Score:1)