Researchers Implant False Memories In Mice

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Researchers Implant False Memories In Mice

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday July 25, 2013 @09:28PM 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."

21 of 102 comments (clear)

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

Download complete by NoMoreMrNiceGuy2 · 2013-07-25 21:29 · Score: 5, Funny

I know kung fu.
1. Re:Download complete by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-25 21:38 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  You remember the spider that lived in a bush outside your window? Orange body, green legs?
No they didn't by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-25 21:42 · 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 · 2013-07-25 23:38 · 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 · 2013-07-26 00:32 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Most people don't need to be conditioned to cringe at Bieber.
3. Re:No they didn't by umafuckit · 2013-07-26 02:24 · 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
And the memory said... by FriendlyLurker · 2013-07-25 22:11 · 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."
The egg hatched... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-25 22:17 · 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 ulatekh · 2013-07-26 02:27 · 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
HHGTG by rossdee · 2013-07-25 22:17 · Score: 5, Funny

So the mice thought they were supervising a computer program to find the ultimate question of Life the Universe and Everything
The Matrix by Vandil+X · 2013-07-25 22:22 · 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 · 2013-07-25 22:24 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  I don't care about philosophy. I just wanna learn Kung Fu.
2. Re:The Matrix by PolygamousRanchKid+ · 2013-07-25 22:47 · 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!
3. Re:The Matrix by Muad'Dave · 2013-07-25 23:58 · 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.
4. Re:The Matrix by Immerman · 2013-07-26 01:02 · 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.
Thanks for the memories! by Maintenance+Goof · 2013-07-25 23:00 · Score: 3, Funny

Have any of you seen a fellow named Kuato around here?
1. Re:Thanks for the memories! by chill · 2013-07-26 01:25 · Score: 2
  
  Screw him! Where's the three-breasted mutant prostitute?
  
  --
  Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
That's Strange... by mrsquid0 · 2013-07-25 23:11 · 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.
Re:They seriously used the SCIENTOLOGY term "engra by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-25 23:23 · Score: 2, Informative

No.
The NSA are going to love this by LordWabbit2 · 2013-07-25 23:25 · 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.
Dupe by PhilHibbs · 2013-07-25 23:52 · Score: 2

I remember seeing this story before.