Memory transfer, not an impossibility anymore

Scientists have successfully switched memories between animals, an achievement that could lead to new treatment for trauma in humans

Scientists have successfully transferred a memory from one marine snail to another, an advance that could lead to new treatments for trauma due to painful events and diseases like Alzheimer’s. RNA, or ribonucleic acid, has been widely known as a cellular messenger that makes proteins and carries out DNA’s instructions to other parts of the cell. It is now understood to have other important functions besides protein coding, including regulation of a variety of cellular processes involved in development and disease.

The researchers from University of California, Los Angeles in the US gave mild electric shocks to the tails of a species of marine snail called Aplysia. The snails received five tail shocks, one every 20 minutes, and then five more 24 hours later.

The shocks enhance the snail’s defensive withdrawal reflex, a response it displays for protection from potential harm. When the researchers subsequently tapped the snails, they found those that had been given the shocks displayed a defensive contraction that lasted an average of 50 seconds, a simple type of learning known as “sensitisation.”

Those that had not been given the shocks contracted for only about one second, according to the study published in the journal of the Society for Neuroscience. The scientists extracted RNA from the nervous systems of marine snails that received the tail shocks the day after the second series of shocks, and also from marine snails that did not receive any shocks.

Researchers found that the seven that received the RNA from snails that were given the shocks behaved as if they themselves had received the tail shocks: They displayed a defensive contraction that lasted an average of about 40 seconds. “It’s as though we transferred the memory,” said David Glanzman, professor at UCLA.