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Researchers Implant False Memories In Mice

Posted by samzenpus on from the remember-this dept.

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."

62 of 102 comments (clear)

  1. Download complete by NoMoreMrNiceGuy2 · · Score: 5, Funny

    I know kung fu.

    1. Re:Download complete by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You remember the spider that lived in a bush outside your window? Orange body, green legs?

  2. No they didn't by Anonymous Coward · · 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.

    1. Re:No they didn't by DaemonDan · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Agreed. I'm not convinced they didn't just condition the mouse to fear that room by forcing an association of that room and pain, similar to me showing you a picture of Beiber and hitting you with a stick until every time you see a picture of him you cringe (maybe that's a bad example).

      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.

      --
      Enjoy post-apocalyptic and singularity science fiction? Check out www.demonarchives.com, a new online graphic-novel.
    2. Re:No they didn't by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      There was a third room where the fear reaction did not take place.

    3. Re: No they didn't by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Most people don't need to be conditioned to cringe at Bieber.

    4. Re:No they didn't by amiga3D · · Score: 1

      Now I know why I scream every time I hear The Beeb.

    5. Re:No they didn't by umafuckit · · Score: 2

      Did you read article to which the (poor and short) summary links? The whole point is that they create a fear response in a situation where there previously wasn't one. In other words, they control for the concern you raise and it's a non-issue. I know there are some crappy papers in Science, but concerns as glaring as the one you cite are going to be controlled for. In this case there is a third context.

      --
      soylentnews.org
    6. Re: No they didn't by gzuckier · · 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.

      --
      Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
  3. And the memory said... by FriendlyLurker · · Score: 2

    "you are a chicken, you were born a chicken, and when you were but a little chick you watched a big spider with an orange body and green legs. You watched her build her web, then one day there's a big egg in it. The egg hatched and a hundred baby spiders came out... and you ate them all."

    1. Re:And the memory said... by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 1

      "More mouse than mouse" is our motto.

      But how will a mouse say, "I want more life, fucker!" . . . ?

      --
      Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
    2. Re:And the memory said... by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 1

      To which the reply will be: SQUEAK.

  4. The egg hatched... by Anonymous Coward · · 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...
    Rachael: The egg hatched...
    Deckard: Yeah...
    Rachael: ...and a hundred baby spiders came out... and they ate her.

    1. Re:The egg hatched... by camperdave · · Score: 1

      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.

      --
      When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
    2. Re:The egg hatched... by ulatekh · · Score: 2

      *Meekly raises hand*
      I, um... I had to look it up.

      Ooooh...we'll have to punch a hole out of your nerd card.

      --
      "Once we've identified and embraced our sickness, we'll have strength...and that's when we get dangerous." - John Waters
    3. Re:The egg hatched... by gorzek · · Score: 1

      GET OUT

      --
      Check out my world simulator thingy.
  5. HHGTG by rossdee · · Score: 5, Funny

    So the mice thought they were supervising a computer program to find the ultimate question of Life the Universe and Everything

    1. Re:HHGTG by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      are they sure the mice didnt implant a flase memory of the researchers implanting a false memory?

      Ive never been to mars!

    2. Re:HHGTG by White+Yeti · · Score: 1
      What if Neo took both pills?

      "You take both pills, you'll wake up in bed, and I'll show you how deep the rabbit hole really goes..."

  6. The Matrix by Vandil+X · · Score: 2

    Well, so restarts the philosophical arguments raised after the original Matrix film came out. You "know" only what your sensory inputs tell you! Is your sensors are being spoofed, may it be a nice steak.

    --
    Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
    1. Re:The Matrix by StiversElizabeth · · Score: 3, Funny

      I don't care about philosophy. I just wanna learn Kung Fu.

    2. Re:The Matrix by Threni · · Score: 1

      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...

    3. Re:The Matrix by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 2

      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

      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.

      --
      Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
    4. Re:The Matrix by Muad'Dave · · Score: 4, 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 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.

      --
      Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
    5. Re:The Matrix by jd2112 · · Score: 1

      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.

      --
      Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
    6. Re:The Matrix by Immerman · · Score: 2

      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 kind of delays are unacceptable for damage avoidance.

      Not that I can think of any reason you couldn't program spinal neurons as "easily" as you could program brain neurons, but that giant steel rod inserted into your skull is unlikely to be of any use in the process.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    7. Re:The Matrix by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      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.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    8. Re:The Matrix by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      All nervous tissue performs processing. Perhaps there is another kind of learning we haven't yet quantitated.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    9. Re:The Matrix by Immerman · · Score: 1

      >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", just that the thoughts themselves constitute a mind, and they cannot logically doubt their own existence.

      And you don't even need a concept of being wrong to get stuck - Descartes himself cheated horribly and relied on blind faith to reconnect with the world - He had "a clear and present concept of infinity" Really? And "infinity must stem from god"? And "God is good, therefore he wouldn't deceive me"? How are any of those logical claims?

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    10. Re:The Matrix by camperdave · · Score: 1

      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?

      --
      When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
    11. Re:The Matrix by N0Man74 · · Score: 1

      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.

    12. Re:The Matrix by jellomizer · · Score: 1

      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.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    13. Re:The Matrix by Agent0013 · · Score: 1

      But you can really get better at physical activity by imagining yourself doing it. Bowling, pool, darts etc. Imagine yourself playing a full game and doing great every day and you will get better at it.

      --

      -- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
    14. Re:The Matrix by ArcadeX · · Score: 1

      Am I the only one that now has the urge to go back and watch Robocop 2?

      --
      An I.T. motto in the hands of an idiot is a dangerous thing...
    15. Re:The Matrix by Pr0methean · · Score: 1

      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>

  7. Preposterous! by Anonymous Coward · · 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 Spanish King's face during the state visit, or the vat of mayo... who can forget that?

  8. For the memory of a lifetime... by Andrio · · Score: 1

    Rekall rekall rekall!

    --
    The Internet King? I wonder if he could provide faster nudity.
  9. Thanks for the memories! by Maintenance+Goof · · Score: 3, Funny

    Have any of you seen a fellow named Kuato around here?

    1. Re:Thanks for the memories! by chill · · Score: 2

      Screw him! Where's the three-breasted mutant prostitute?

      --
      Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
  10. That's Strange... by mrsquid0 · · Score: 2

    I could have sworn that I already posted a clever reply to this story.

    --
    Just because you are paranoid does not mean that no-one is out to get you.
  11. reminds me of the movie total recall by youn · · Score: 1

    except mars would be a chocolate bar

    --
    Never antropomorphize computers, they do not like that :p
  12. Dear Mr. President by smittyoneeach · · Score: 1

    As with your economic stylings, this purported knowledge isn't going to last too well past the first encounter with reality. You should have listened to Moltke, not Marx.

    --
    Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
  13. Re:They seriously used the SCIENTOLOGY term "engra by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    No.

  14. The NSA are going to love this by LordWabbit2 · · Score: 2

    The NSA are going to love this! Or maybe they already know how to do it and John Pointdexter and Oliver North really meant it when they kept saying "I have no clear recollection of that." at the Iran Contra trial.

    --
    There are three kinds of falsehood: the first is a 'fib,' the second is a downright lie, and the third is statistics.
  15. Sounds familiar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Isn't this the mainly plot behind Pinky & the Brain?

    I for one welcome our new mouse, memory implanted overlords.

  16. Now... by Dcnjoe60 · · Score: 1

    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.

  17. Dupe by PhilHibbs · · Score: 2

    I remember seeing this story before.

  18. Pffftttt.... by CanadianMacFan · · 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?

  19. I know kung fu by holophrastic · · Score: 1

    corrected subtitle.

  20. SQUEAK! by Greyfox · · Score: 1

    Get your ass to mars!

    --

    I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

  21. Yein Group Properties by emlak21 · · Score: 1

    I think those arguments predate that movie. If we have to limit ourselves to movies any self-respecting nerd would be quoting Dark Star Yein Group Properties http://www.yegingroup.com/

  22. Wait.. by dgr73 · · Score: 1

    didn't I already read this bit of news about humans?

  23. Who cut the cheese by tepples · · Score: 1

    So how do you ask "Who cut the cheese supply to Station C?" in mouse?

  24. Just Think by The+Cat · · 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 evidence it worked.

    But that's okay. Give it ten years and there will be no such thing as the human self any more. Some benevolent scientist will flip a few switches and make you into whatever the hell they want.

  25. Stop trying to hit me and hit me by tepples · · Score: 1

    That's what the sparring scene in the dojo construct was about: allowing Neo's brain to adapt the generic martial arts programs to his own body.

  26. Re: They seriously used the SCIENTOLOGY term "engr by tepples · · Score: 1

    Dianetics appears to use "engram" to refer to what a mainstream psychologist might describe as engrams of trauma that contribute to PTSD.

  27. Obligatory Beavis & Butthead by ulatekh · · Score: 1

    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?"

    --
    "Once we've identified and embraced our sickness, we'll have strength...and that's when we get dangerous." - John Waters
  28. The teacher's unions will oppose this by ulatekh · · Score: 1

    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.

    --
    "Once we've identified and embraced our sickness, we'll have strength...and that's when we get dangerous." - John Waters
    1. Re:The teacher's unions will oppose this by Zordak · · Score: 1

      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.

      --

      Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
  29. Ahah! by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    So THAT'S who moved my cheese!

  30. Re:Tablet to PC's mouse by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 1

    This is not the Cheese you're looking for.

    "The secret is, there is no Cheese..."

    --
    "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
    Never been known to fail..."
  31. NLP on different level by shtolcers · · Score: 1

    Actually methods provided strongly resembles same that are used in NLP. Watch some of Darren Brown's shows and you'll see. :D For ex. look at one of the methods used - anchoring (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methods_of_neuro-linguistic_programming#Techniques)