MIT Researchers Implant False Memories In Mice

[kajinking]

Well....that's not creepy at all.... >.>

Seriously, this should be MIT's new slogan: "MIT: Because Apparently We Really Don't Have Anything Better To Do."

MIT: we do what we must, because we can.

For the good of all of us except for the ones who are dead

 

[RJ 17]

Well....that's not creepy at all.... >.>

Seriously, this should be MIT's new slogan: "MIT: Because Apparently We Really Don't Have Anything Better To Do."

MIT: we do what we must, because we can.

For the good of all of us.
.....except the ones who are dead.

Edit: *points to the post above this one* Bah, got quoted AND ninja'd.

 

[GoaThief]

This animal testing is barbaric, totally unnecessary. I'm sure these "clever" scientists could have devised a test involving positive response in the mice instead.

The people involved should be ashamed of the monsters they have become. Truly sick.

 

[TheMyffic]

I think we're still a long, long way from mapping out exactly what neurons hold which memories, so I wouldn't run out to buy a football helmet just yet.

I know animal testing is necessary for us to progress, but reading about things like this just makes me feel bad.

Yeah, me too. It would be nice if we could implant memories of cheese and hugs. And maybe Skittles [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/comics/critical-miss/10471-Heritage].

Not sure if serious, but yeah, with something like this, some positive memories should be associated with that light. Unfortunately, those mice were probably killed once the experiment was over.

I don't know if you can kill them - they'll never walk towards the bright light at the end on the tunnel...

 

[Hunter Creed]

This animal testing is barbaric, totally unnecessary. I'm sure these "clever" scientists could have devised a test involving positive response in the mice instead.

The people involved should be ashamed of the monsters they have become. Truly sick.

Would you be saying that in twenty years? Fifty years? What happens if this research actually goes somewhere? What if fifty years down the line, you can walk into an office, pay a small fee, a few hours later, you leave with the ability to speak a new language. Or you've been scarred in war and you left with memories of sunshine, lolipops and rainbows. And it all started because of animal testing.

I figure, as long as the research gives us something, we came out ahead. If it takes a few hundred even thousands of mice to make our lives better, I could care less for the mice. If it were humans, I would be more against it, well, assuming they were forced.

This would only be kind of messed up if these scientists were doing this for shits and giggles. They just felt like screwing with mice to laugh at their pain. But they're learning things to help humanity as a whole. If that is sick then we're screwed in the long run. Someone is going to end up getting hurt when it comes to progress. If we can 'hurt' some mice to help humanity, what is the problem?

"the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few"
-Mr. Spock

 

[Colt47]

It would be kind of nice if we could get to the point with tech like this that more complex memories could be artificially created. Think "learn advanced math theorems with their associated proofs and applications" in the process of a few minutes. Talk about saving someone some real time there.

 

[Strazdas]

Can it make studying easier? As in implant knowledge in my brain until it explodes?

that would be the good usage.
noone will do it.

instead what it will be used for is creating many worker drones to stop cmplaining and refusing obviuosly beneficial things like SOPA and Prism.

 

[Lil_Rimmy]

Beelly, Junas! Get yer tin-'ats boys, teh govern-mint is a'coming!

...

Seriously, what the hell is with all of the paranoia in these thread?! Every time someone posts someone awesome like this on the escapist, there is always 2 or 3 people who go "IT'S HORRIBLE!" and "THE GOVERNMENT WILL CONTROL US WITH IT!".

We live in 2013, goddamnit!

 

[Hagi]

The false memory is that they are tricking the mice into remembering something that didnt happen.

Test 1 - shine light on mice

Test 2 - shine light on mice and shock them

Test 3 - Mice are put in test 1 conditons, but think its test 2 (hence the false memory)

It's crude, but think of this as eye witness testimony. You are at a diner and you recall in your testimony that there were 4 men in suits there (sit. A). But CCTV shows that there were actually 2 men and 1 women (sit. B). The research in this paper basically tricked the mice into thinking situation A was real by manipulating memory forming cells with light.

In other words, the mice arent remembering B because of A (Pavlov), they are mis-remembering A because they were tricked by B.

That's not a false memory. That's pure Pavlov. Nothing else.

If Pavlov counts as a false memory then we've been implanting them since the 1900s.

Those three tests are exactly Pavlov. A first test as control to record baseline behavior. A second test as conditioning to alter that behavior. A third test to record the effects of said conditioning. Each test repeated several times of course. That's how Pavlov works.

The example you provide has absolutely nothing to do with those three tests as there's no case of conditioning, it's completely unrelated.

The mice aren't misremembering anything, they've simply been conditioned by 100% genuine memories that when light, from the fiber-optic cable, occurs it's followed by pain. A, from the mice's perspective, completely logical and valid conclusion. There's absolutely nothing fake about that memory.

The light, from the fiber-optic cable, genuinely did occur. You can measure it. It was then followed by pain, another completely measurable and real thing. The mice, through conditioning, associated those two real events. Now when the first real event, the fiber-optic stimula, occurs again they, through conditioning, react expecting the pain to follow.

 

[James Joseph Emerald]

The light, from the fiber-optic cable, genuinely did occur. You can measure it. It was then followed by pain, another completely measurable and real thing.

You're right, the term "false memory" is a bit sensationalist in this context. From the abstract of the research paper:

Memories can be unreliable. We created a false memory in mice by optogenetically manipulating memory engram-bearing cells in the hippocampus. Dentate gyrus (DG) or CA1 neurons activated by exposure to a particular context were labeled with channelrhodopsin-2. These neurons were later optically reactivated during fear conditioning in a different context. The DG experimental group showed increased freezing in the original context, in which a foot shock was never delivered. The recall of this false memory was context-specific, activated similar downstream regions engaged during natural fear memory recall, and was also capable of driving an active fear response. Our data demonstrate that it is possible to generate an internally represented and behaviorally expressed fear memory via artificial means.

In other words, the paper is showing that you can induce a Pavlovian response towards artificial stimuli, which seems obvious but probably has never been formally tested and proven.
Also, I feel I should point out that optogenetic manipulation is just a method of stimulating neurons in brain cells; it could theoretically encode any information, and the researchers probably have no idea what sort of stimuli the mice actually experienced; it's not like shining a light in their face. It is an entirely synthetic stimulus.

 

[shirkbot]

-snip-

Two points on which I have strong feelings:
1) And I hate myself even as I type this just because it sounds so cruel: I do not support replacing traumatizing memories from wars or other conflicts. Period. Those are the consequences of your actions and you have to live with them. You should have free access to therapy or virtually any other treatment, but those mental scars are yours to keep until you die. I refuse to have the consequences of war diminished.
2) Animal research is acceptable, but I would actually prefer it much more if we did more human research. It generates much more and more useful data, and it doesn't hurt animals that have nothing to do with it.

In other words, the paper is showing that you can induce a Pavlovian response towards artificial stimuli, which seems obvious but probably has never been formally tested and proven.
Also, I feel I should point out that optogenetic manipulation is just a method of stimulating neurons in brain cells; it could theoretically encode any information, and the researchers probably have no idea what sort of stimuli the mice actually experienced; it's not like shining a light in their face. It is an entirely synthetic stimulus.

Thank you for that clarification. That actually had been bugging me as well.

We live in 2013, goddamnit!

You have answered your own question. 2013 has been a great year for conspiracy theorists, what with the whole PRISM, AP records collection, drone war and any number of other notable government abuses of technology.

OT: And on a final note: Why exactly are we doing this again? I mean, it's kind of nifty, but what is the long-term object?

 

[GoaThief]

This animal testing is barbaric, totally unnecessary. I'm sure these "clever" scientists could have devised a test involving positive response in the mice instead.

The people involved should be ashamed of the monsters they have become. Truly sick.

Would you be saying that in twenty years? Fifty years? What happens if this research actually goes somewhere? What if fifty years down the line, you can walk into an office, pay a small fee, a few hours later, you leave with the ability to speak a new language. Or you've been scarred in war and you left with memories of sunshine, lolipops and rainbows. And it all started because of animal testing.

I figure, as long as the research gives us something, we came out ahead. If it takes a few hundred even thousands of mice to make our lives better, I could care less for the mice. If it were humans, I would be more against it, well, assuming they were forced.

This would only be kind of messed up if these scientists were doing this for shits and giggles. They just felt like screwing with mice to laugh at their pain. But they're learning things to help humanity as a whole. If that is sick then we're screwed in the long run. Someone is going to end up getting hurt when it comes to progress. If we can 'hurt' some mice to help humanity, what is the problem?

"the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few"
-Mr. Spock

I'd outright refuse to pay for additional abilities on moral grounds due to the background, I'm not outright against animal testing say for vaccines and the like but I ask you why should these scientists be using a pain response instead of a different stimulus? I feed my pet snake mice but I don't torture the poor creatures beforehand and they are essential foodstuffs for the snake. If there was another option I'd use it.

The quote you used is also deeply flawed, society would arguably be better off without people with mental illness and violent tendencies so should we all exterminate them to make the world a "better" place? I am also questioning if this line of research will even be used for altruistic reasons, considering it's origins are quite dark imagine the evil that this memory manipulation could be used for. Hell, what if certain bodies are already a few steps ahead?

 

[Yopaz]

I know animal testing is necessary for us to progress, but reading about things like this just makes me feel bad.

Does it make you feel better if I tell you there are REALLY strict regulations around using animals in research?

Both special bred animals, tons of pages you have to read through and agree with (about animal abuse, pain and ethical procedures), lots of pages with forms you have to fill out and a detailed description (that has to be approved by a committee) of your hypothesis and procedures before you're even allowed to start working on an animal?

 

[Comocat]

...

Fair points, but the subtlety I believe is that the mice are not aware of the manipulation. They do not know they are being zapped with light, because the cellular manipulation is happening internally. So really what the researchers are doing is controlling a memory (or behavior) at the cellular level with light. At that point I believe it becomes a semantics game where this is either "conditioned response" or an "actual memory."

Regardless, even if it is just a conditioned response they have essentially bypassed the traditional routes of classical conditioning (our senses) by manipulating the brain itself.

This still has implications in eye witness testimony, for example, because there are certainly environment cues that influence (or condition) are ability to form memories.

 

[KOMega]

Well....that's not creepy at all.... >.>

Seriously, this should be MIT's new slogan: "MIT: Because Apparently We Really Don't Have Anything Better To Do."

"They say great science is built on the shoulders of giants - not here. At Aperture MIT we do all our science from scratch; no hand holding."

 

[Hagi]

...

Fair points, but the subtlety I believe is that the mice are not aware of the manipulation. They do not know they are being zapped with light, because the cellular manipulation is happening internally. So really what the researchers are doing is controlling a memory (or behavior) at the cellular level with light. At that point I believe it becomes a semantics game where this is either "conditioned response" or an "actual memory."

Regardless, even if it is just a conditioned response they have essentially bypassed the traditional routes of classical conditioning (our senses) by manipulating the brain itself.

This still has implications in eye witness testimony, for example, because there are certainly environment cues that influence (or condition) are ability to form memories.

Eye Witness testimonies are already pretty much proven to be very unreliable. Any laws that remain which do not recognize this fact do not exist because of lack of evidence but rather because of a ponderous and slow lawmaking system.

And, as I've said, this certainly is very impressive. But the impressive part is that they've essentially given these mouses an additional sense rather than false memories. Whilst any memories produced by this new sense can't be mistaken for memories from another sense they aren't fake. That's ( part of ) what makes something a fake, that it can potentially be mistaken for something it's not.

Only when the memories created by this new sense can be mistaken for memories from another sense do they become fakes.

 

[RJ 17]

Well....that's not creepy at all.... >.>

Seriously, this should be MIT's new slogan: "MIT: Because Apparently We Really Don't Have Anything Better To Do."

"They say great science is built on the shoulders of giants - not here. At Aperture MIT we do all our science from scratch; no hand holding."

Science isn't about why, it's about why not! WHY put optic fiber into a mouse's head and then shock it? WHY NOT marry non-surgical science if you love it so much! In fact, WHY NOT invent a special safety door that won't hit you on the butt on the way out up because you are EXPELLED! YES! YOU! BOX YOUR STUFF! OUT THE FRONT DOOR! PARKING LOT, CAR, GOODBYE!

 

[shirkbot]

The people who are responsible for war are never, ever the people who suffer for it.

No, but in a democracy those responsible are elected by the families of those who suffer. Either way, that's another issue entirely and we probably shouldn't put too large a pothole in the thread. Feel free to send me a message though if you'd like to discuss further.