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Scientists Transfer Memory Between Snails (scientificamerican.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Scientific American: UCLA neuroscientists reported Monday that they have transferred a memory from one animal to another via injections of RNA, a startling result that challenges the widely held view of where and how memories are stored in the brain. The finding from the lab of David Glanzman hints at the potential for new RNA-based treatments to one day restore lost memories and, if correct, could shake up the field of memory and learning. The researchers extracted RNA from the nervous systems of snails that had been shocked and injected the material into unshocked snails. RNA's primary role is to serve as a messenger inside cells, carrying protein-making instructions from its cousin DNA. But when this RNA was injected, these naive snails withdrew their siphons for extended periods of time after a soft touch. Control snails that received injections of RNA from snails that had not received shocks did not withdraw their siphons for as long.
Glanzman's group went further, showing that Aplysia sensory neurons in Petri dishes were more excitable, as they tend to be after being shocked, if they were exposed to RNA from shocked snails. Exposure to RNA from snails that had never been shocked did not cause the cells to become more excitable. The results, said Glanzman, suggest that memories may be stored within the nucleus of neurons, where RNA is synthesized and can act on DNA to turn genes on and off. He said he thought memory storage involved these epigenetic changes -- changes in the activity of genes and not in the DNA sequences that make up those genes -- that are mediated by RNA. This view challenges the widely held notion that memories are stored by enhancing synaptic connections between neurons. Rather, Glanzman sees synaptic changes that occur during memory formation as flowing from the information that the RNA is carrying. The study has been published in the journal eNeuro.
Glanzman's group went further, showing that Aplysia sensory neurons in Petri dishes were more excitable, as they tend to be after being shocked, if they were exposed to RNA from shocked snails. Exposure to RNA from snails that had never been shocked did not cause the cells to become more excitable. The results, said Glanzman, suggest that memories may be stored within the nucleus of neurons, where RNA is synthesized and can act on DNA to turn genes on and off. He said he thought memory storage involved these epigenetic changes -- changes in the activity of genes and not in the DNA sequences that make up those genes -- that are mediated by RNA. This view challenges the widely held notion that memories are stored by enhancing synaptic connections between neurons. Rather, Glanzman sees synaptic changes that occur during memory formation as flowing from the information that the RNA is carrying. The study has been published in the journal eNeuro.
That sure sounds like a reputable journal worth many tenure points.
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I believe there is a significant amount of evidence that synaptic connections do store memories. This work shows evidence that RNA can also be involved in storing memories. It is not like it has to be one of the other. We know of a number of memory mechanisms (short term, long term, explicit, implicit, sensory, muscle, procedural, declarative, etc., etc.) it would not be at all surprising for there to be more than one way memory is stored for different purposes.
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This is a bit of a fail. It's interesting but its nothing close to memory transfer.
The shock stress probably caused the expression of a bunch of stress-related RNA, which when injected into other cells caused a similar stress response. This is like taking the blood of someone in a panic and injecting it into yourself. The adrenaline in the blood is probably going to give you a flight or fight response.
But is hardly a transfer of memory that caused the panic in the first place.
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.
I never worked it out... did the snail simply have a dream implanted, or was he actually a freedom-fighting secret-agent on Mars?
We learned about the planaria experiment in HS back in the 70's; this somehow seems all very familiar.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
Time to bring back the publication:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
This one kept a log of the results of the planarian worm experiments.
By the way, a very good read is the book titled "The Golem" by Harry Collins. It describes how murky some of the results of the scientific experiments were, despite the fact that today they are accepted as decisive evidence.
A researcher experimenting with gamma rays and radioactive snail RNA late at night in a lab experiences a horrific accident, combining his DNA with snail RNA. Now, whenever he gets angry or frightened, a startling metamorphosis occurs... and he exhibits supernatural slowness, and the ability to leave a slimy trail everywhere he goes... the story is not nearly as exciting as what happened to Bruce Banner (or David Banner, if you prefer TV)... instead of "Hulking Out," he just gets a job at the DMV, or moonlights at the Post Office, where he can put his amazing new... powers, as it were, to best use. In this new form, he is known only as, "The SNAIL!"
His Kryptonite is of course, table salt.
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.