Is it Actually Possible to Plant Memories in Someone? (part 1)

Memories; good ones, bad ones, fun ones, sad ones. Everyone has them. Our pasts make up who we are and by giving up our precious memories, we no longer have much that distinguishes our lives from the person sitting next to us. People hold their memories extremely close to their hearts and everyone enjoys looking back on the good times, and maybe even the bad times. But what would someone say if you told them that some of their sweet memories may be in fact made up?

According to “Psychology,” by Ciccarelli White, memory is the persistence of learning over time, through active encoding, storage and retrieval of information. There are three stages of memory which include sensory memory (immediate and brief recording of sensory information), short-term memory (holds a few items for a short time), and long term memory (relatively permanent and has limitless storage). However, memory is a constructive process; therefore we filter or fill in missing pieces of information to make our recall more coherent. In other words, our memories are perceived by us in unique ways and they just consistently play over and over in our heads; some parts are bound to be added or taken away. It is close to impossible to have a near perfect recollection of exactly what happened, and this is why many countries do not allow for criminal prosecution if the only evidence is from eyewitness testimony.

It’s extremely strange that while you are reminiscing with a friend about a memory, and have a different recollection than them while you were both there, experiencing the same thing. This happens to my sisters and me all of the time. My favorite part of a memory might be something that her brain has completely left out of the story, so she simply can’t remember it. It seems to me that the older the story, the more often this happens. So is it me who has faulty memories, or her? Or is it both of us? It is close to impossible to ever be able to truly know exactly what happened without a time machine or a video camera. This is kind of scary considering some things that you think you’ve went through could very well be figments of your imagination. People tend to forget that our minds are pretty faulty when it comes to our long term memory.

In order to experiment with this idea, a study was published in Science reporting that a team of scientists found a way to plant false memories in mice. They used channelrhodopsin (a protein that activates neurons when it is stimulated by light. The cells in the hippocampus of the mice were engineered so that they would express the gene for channelrhodopsin. Whenever a gene necessary for memory formation was turned on, channelrhodoposin would be produced, and all this information was provided by Medical News Today.

On the first day of the experiment, the researchers put the mice in chamber A and allowed them to run freely, meanwhile their memory cells with channelrhodopsin, and on day two the researchers put the mice in chamber B, which was quite different from chamber A. Eventually, the mice were shocked mildly on their foot while researchers activated the memory cells from chamber A with light. When the researchers put the mice back in chamber A on day three, the mice froze with fear, even though they were never shocked there.

Yellow-necked Mouse (Apodemus flavicollis) juvenile

While this blog showed that it is possible for scientists to use equipment to plant false memories in mice, the second part of the blog will discuss how to do it on people without needing to use equipment of any sort.

One thought on “Is it Actually Possible to Plant Memories in Someone? (part 1)

  1. Abigail Charlotte Ventosa

    This reminds me when my family tells stories of things that happened when I was way too young to remember, yet I swear I have memories of the things they’re talking about. Are these memories I have created myself simply because I’ve heard the stories being told over and over? According to thedailybeast.com , it’s actuallyway easier to create false memories than we think.

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