Is Memory Transfer Possible?

Planarians, small flatworms less than a centimeter long, have a rich and controversial history in the science of memory.

Memory Outside the Brain?

You see, planarians are one of those amazing animals which can regenerate parts of their body, like starfish. What is unique about planarians, though, especially for their small size and regenerative abilities, is that they have a centralized nervous system: a head and brain. Even more amazingly, unlike geckos which can regenerate their tails but would die if you chopped their heads off, if you chop a planarian’s head off, or even 90% of its body off, the tip of its tail can regrow a new head and body.

The cannibals did not absorb the fear of light that their meals had learned. But amazingly, once these cannibal worms were exposed to the same classical conditioning experiment, they learned fear significantly faster than other worms that had never been exposed to it, almost as if they were re-learning the light-shock association from memory.

Researchers Arlene Hartly and colleagues (1964) later replicated the infamous cannibalism findings – sort of. Interestingly, they found that while cannibals who fed on trained planarians managed to learn the threat-association faster, so too did cannibals who fed on untrained planarians. It was less like absorbing memories, and more like absorbing smarts. Therefore, researchers believed that the effect had less to do with true memory transfer, but transfer of something important for memory.

How Is Memory Really Stored?

Most biologists, neuroscientists, and psychologists still believe that memory is mainly stored in the brain, but some brainless animals – and formerly brainless planarians – somehow manage to learn and remember things. All of this is to say that, however our brains and bodies store memory, it is very, very, complicated.

Does this mean that memory can be transferred from one organism to another? Currently, there’s no solid evidence supporting this claim. Will it ever be possible? The short answer: We don’t know.

Things to remember

• Research into whether memories could be transferred from one individual to another is rooted in the study of flatworms known as planarians.

• When these worms regenerated brains after decapitation, they appeared to retain training they'd received before losing their heads.

• Whether worms who ate other worms acquired their memories is a more controversial claim.

Source: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/natured-nurture/202210/is-memory-transfer-possible

What are your thought on memory transferability and modern technology?

#Neuroscience #Memories #Psychology