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  • MIT Plants False Memories, Brings About Miception

    Smriti Jha

    Member

    Updated: Oct 21, 2024
    Views: 1.2K
    Researchers at MIT have shown that it is possible to introduce false memories into the mind, and they have done so by using the brains of mice to successfully arouse fear of an event which didn't occur at all. This breakthrough result comes from the same team that discovered that memories are located in individual neurons. Extending the concept, the team has devised necessary steps leading to the process of implanting (or "incepting" as we may popularly refer to it) artificial memories. This research might explain why humans recall things that didn’t actually happen or vehemently believe they married an alien or conspiracy theorists in general.

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    The researchers placed a mouse in a brand new environment (Place A), which the mouse first explores and then stores as new memories in the hippocampus (the region of the mammalian brain that is involved with memory formation). Scientists make sure that Place A becomes a fun memory for the mouse. The mouse is then transferred to a different environment (Place B). Here, the neuroscientists stimulate the memory of Place A using optogenetics. Optogenetics is dabbling with the genetics of cells so that they become sensitive to light. MIT researchers injected the mice with a virus that affected the neurons in the exact region of the hippocampus where Place A memories were formed. This virus changed the neuron’s DNA in such a way that a protein switch was produced that is sensitive to light. When these neurons are struck by light, (which travels through a hole drilled in the mouse’s skull, see above) the memory is turned on.

    miception​

    This process is carried out while simultaneously delivering electric shocks to the mouse’s feet, causing fear and pain. So, when the mouse is returned to Place A, it freezes in fear. This is because the mouse’s brain now associates electric shocks in Place B with its memory of Place A. Hence, rendering a false memory.

    The research proves that false memories can be created and the physiological process of creating and recalling false memories and real memories is quite similar. Even though how humans create such elaborate false memories still remains elusive. The research group aims use its memory manipulation techniques to fix/treat disorders such as anxiety and depression. How do you tell a false memory from true? Well, you can't.

    Via: <a href="https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/162364-mit-successfully-implants-false-memories-may-teach-us-how-human-brains-form-false-memories" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">MIT successfully implants false memories, may explain why we remember things that didn’t happen | ExtremeTech</a>
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  • Jeffrey Arulraj

    Member • Jul 27, 2013

    Well making this tech go out of control can lead to choas But this makes all wonder what can man not do in the future

    Side effects of the project is not posted here Why is it so?
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  • madhu27

    Member • Jul 27, 2013

    Is this concept of false memory useful? This technology should be kept in control, if not it may lead to chaos.
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  • lovebox

    Member • Jul 27, 2013

    Awe inspiring research 👍.
    We are inching closer to the idea of programmable memory in living organisms.
    If put to good use, it can have a lot of positive implications.
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  • Anoop Mathew

    Member • Jul 27, 2013

    Positive implications??? No ways! Listen, these people are building things that are worse than atom bombs - it takes only one crazy idiot to blow the whole thing up and turn it into a whole new level of crazy!😡

    It may look supervised and under control, but no! Research in itself is more chaos than good!👀
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  • Sarathkumar Chandrasekaran

    Member • Jul 28, 2013

    Al
    anoopthefriend
    Positive implications??? No ways! Listen, these people are building things that are worse than atom bombs - it takes only one crazy idiot to blow the whole thing up and turn it into a whole new level of crazy!😡

    It may look supervised and under control, but no! Research in itself is more chaos than good!👀
    All the inventions were made for the betterment of people but people are the one who use it for their selfishness.Imagine that this false memory can be a good concept for a movie but not for a real life.As fellow CEans said It can change the future to hell like situation.
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  • Smriti Jha

    Member • Jul 28, 2013

    Don't read too much into the negative implications of the word 'False'. One positive application of this research could be making a new memory, such as learning to fly or karate and placing it in your brain. Easy Peasy. Like The Matrix, basically.
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  • Smriti Jha

    Member • Jul 28, 2013

    @#-Link-Snipped-# One side effect might be the hole they drill into the skull for optogenetics to work. On a serious note, I think we are jumping the gun here. Elaborate technologies like this don't go rogue easily.
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  • Nayan Goenka

    Member • Aug 11, 2013

    This is surely going to bring chaos in the world if ever launched successfully. Criminals/other secret people will tend to tweak its use as they wish and innocent people will suffer. This is exactly like controlling some one's mind and it is against human rights also i believe. This will snatch away the freedom of thought.
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  • Anoop Mathew

    Member • Aug 11, 2013

    Smriti Jha
    Don't read too much into the negative implications of the word 'False'. One positive application of this research could be making a new memory, such as learning to fly or karate and placing it in your brain. Easy Peasy. Like The Matrix, basically.
    Or you could also say that the guy who made the Atom Bomb first thought it was noble! Well it did not prove to be!!! 😏
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  • lovebox

    Member • Aug 11, 2013

    anoopthefriend
    Or you could also say that the guy who made the Atom Bomb first thought it was noble! Well it did not prove to be!!! 😏

    A little correction perhaps bro, if you don't mind. The guy who first made the atomic BOMB could never have noble intentions. It was a weapon at its very conception.

    I think what you meant to say here is that the person who first suggested about the existence of nuclear reactions and related phenomena.

    Correct me if I have not been able to grasp what you meant.
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  • lovebox

    Member • Aug 11, 2013

    Nayan Goenka
    This is surely going to bring chaos in the world if ever launched successfully. Criminals/other secret people will tend to tweak its use as they wish and innocent people will suffer. This is exactly like controlling some one's mind and it is against human rights also i believe. This will snatch away the freedom of thought.
    Perhaps not bro. Its not as if we can do anything like this to humans without their permission and co-operation. This would require complex neuro-surgical procedures. Right now the technique is very pre-mature and can only evoke a certain emotion in a mouse (the emotion of fear in this case). With time the mouse may even learn to overcome this fear. Thoughts are way too complicated to be controlled as such.. and humans are far too complicated beings.
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  • Nayan Goenka

    Member • Aug 11, 2013

    lovebox
    Perhaps not bro. Its not as if we can do anything like this to humans without their permission and co-operation. This would require complex neuro-surgical procedures. Right now the technique is very pre-mature and can only evoke a certain emotion in a mouse (the emotion of fear in this case). With time the mouse may even learn to overcome this fear. Thoughts are way too complicated to be controlled as such.. and humans are far too complicated beings.


    Intentions kept aside, if you are able to control any one's thoughts, that is not ethical and morally correct. With the consent of the individual you say, what do you think if this technology gets weaponised and then it brings terror everywhere. I believe you have seen Batman. This is just like what Dr ScareCrow does.
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