this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2024
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In this study, the scientists simulated the process of spaced learning by examining two types of non-brain human cells — one from nerve tissue and one from kidney tissue — in a laboratory setting.

These cells were exposed to varying patterns of chemical signals, akin to the exposure of brain cells to neurotransmitter patterns when we learn new information.

The intriguing part? These non-brain cells also switched on a “memory gene” – the same gene that brain cells activate when they detect information patterns and reorganize their connections to form memories.

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[–] Metostopholes@midwest.social 185 points 3 days ago (9 children)

Memory is stored in the balls

[–] disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world 50 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (13 children)

Just to recap, sperm, pee, microplastics, and memories are stored in the balls? Am I missing anything? I can’t remember. Maybe my balls are too full of microplastics to recall.

[–] masterofn001@lemmy.ca 35 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)
[–] Sabata11792@ani.social 28 points 3 days ago

I'm sure you could fit a few dollars in loose change in there to.

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Thanks i actually needed this comment to be here.

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[–] ValenThyme@reddthat.com 26 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

fascinating, this concept is a core to the theravadan buddhist practice of vipassana meditation, which is supposed to be what the buddha himself actually taught in his wandering classroom. I always took that bit with a grain of salt assuming it was just an old misunderstanding of what's going on but the kind of non-thought memories appears to be exactly what is described.

it's called Vasana and it's said to be like 'perfume lingering in cloth', the residual karma from our actions that shapes our future and influences automatic actions and preferences. Trauma is said to be stored in the body as well as Sankhara.

I have always viewed vipassana as mental martial arts more than religion, and brushed off all the reincarnation and other inexplicable stuff. fascinating to hear scientists confirming what philosophers came up with thousands of years ago.

[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml 16 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Isn't the title misleading? A cell switching on the same gen neurons use to connect, if exposed to substance used to transmit information, doesn't mean it stores or transmits any memories. It seems it doesn't even do anything more, like forming dendrites or "answering" chemically.

Guess that's just a side-effect of how the gen is exposed.

[–] mambabasa@slrpnk.net 11 points 2 days ago (2 children)

It's more than that. People who have had heart transplants can inherit memories and personality traits from the donor. Cells remember more than they let on and can pass these memories to the recipient.

See this study. I think it's safe to say we have some empirical evidence for this. In the linked study, there's a kid who received a heart from another kid who died trying to retrieve a power ranger and somehow the donor knew that without anyone telling him. Another kid received a heart from a kid who drowned and he became afraid of water.

[–] Couldbealeotard@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago

Sounds like utter bullshit to be honest with you.

At the bottom of that article you linked:
"Research data for this article Data not available / No data was used for the research described in the article"

[–] Luccus@feddit.org 7 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

If I read the cited sources and they turn out to be a bunch of untested hypotheses based on poorly conducted studies… I'll be mad.

Just skimming through it makes a bad first impression.

…I'm not even trying to be derisive. I'm just really angry at how much "there's a study" has become "there's proof". And I shouldn't even be mad because communicating that difference should be the authors' job.

If you value your time, don't read any further because I'm just going to vent a little:


So I lack any formal education (apart from ficking school). The best thing I can say about myself is that I can hold and mostly understand a conversation with people who are actually educated in their field.

But some studies are bad. Like bad-bad. So bad that I think, most people who can read should be able to recognize their flaws if they actually read them.

For example:

I read a study a while back about genetic (as opposed to learned) prepositions of monkeys in relation to their biological sex and preference for toys.

The methodology was bad, but here's the shittiest part imo: At the end of the study, the researchers found that of the 130 or so monkeys, only about half showed any preference for any kind toy. So the researchers excluded the unbiased monkeys from the test. Of the remaining monkeys, still only the males showed any preference for the "male" toys. So the females were also excluded. In the end, only 30 monkeys actually counted, because they showed the hypothesized difference in their preferences. And even those only showed a delta of 10-30% in the time they spent with the toys.

The study should have concluded that most monkeys don't give a shit if a toy has wheels (like a shopping cart, which apparently makes it a "male" toy) or if it's soft, like a plush (which is "female" because boys would never touch a plushy, of course).

Instead, they found that their hypothesis turned out to be correct, after disregarding anything that invalidated their hypothesis.

Where did I get this study from? From social media, of course. Where a bunch of meat heads "proved" that all women genetically want to be tradwives and trans people don't exist or some shit.

Fuck everything about this.

[–] ABCDE@lemmy.world 75 points 3 days ago (1 children)
[–] Endymion_Mallorn@kbin.melroy.org 30 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Technically, a handgun also kills cancer in vivo. The problem is the cost to the host body.

[–] bizarroland@fedia.io 12 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Okay but what you're saying is if I hired a good enough marksman to shoot the cancer out of my body without killing me then that's a good thing right?

I mean, that's basically what we do with gamma radiation and chemotherapy, just a little bit more ballistic, right?

[–] Endymion_Mallorn@kbin.melroy.org 11 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Exactly! The only difference is that those use very tiny bullets.

[–] Liz@midwest.social 6 points 2 days ago

Chemo only applies if it's doped with a radionuclide, otherwise it's just regular poison.

[–] Shardikprime@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Yeah last week people on Lemmy were arguing that memory is the simplest thing to exist EVER and that musk's neuralink meant we had matrix reloaded already at the corner

The hubris never ceases to amaze me

[–] Yewb@lemmy.world 23 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Musk is a snake oil salesman that buys other people's ideas and pays smart people to make it, then steals all the profits for himself.

Modern day Thomas Edison.

[–] CitizenKong@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Except he hasn't electrocuted a live elephant to make a point. Yet.

[–] irreticent@lemmy.world 10 points 2 days ago

In related news:

The complications include bloody diarrhea, partial paralysis, and cerebral edema, a condition colloquially known as “brain swelling.”

[–] Matty_r@programming.dev 19 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Its like the blockchain for you body.

[–] PainInTheAES@lemmy.world 18 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] Brickhead92@lemmy.world 9 points 2 days ago

Identifier of ownership

[–] KaTaRaNaGa@lemmy.world 16 points 2 days ago

“The Body Keeps the Score”

[–] Adderbox76@lemmy.ca 29 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Not to be a debbie downer here, but it's important to keep in mind that unless expressly stated otherwise, so-called discoveries that are only published in out-of-the-way (ie. not respected scientific journals) have usually not been peer reviewed or had their results replicated, which is the entire point of the scientific method.

[–] _bac@lemmy.world 24 points 3 days ago

Its interestng, but kidney cells are not exposed to patterns of neurotransmiters like nerve cells are. Cells can be reprogramed to be stem cells as well with the right pattern od signals but that does not mean that it really happens in the body.

[–] Liome@pawb.social 41 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Do we need to format our kidneys before becoming a donor now?

[–] Atelopus-zeteki@fedia.io 34 points 3 days ago (3 children)

Maybe. There are numerous reports of people having changes in personality after organ transplants.

Personality changes following heart transplantation: The role of cellular memory https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31739081/

https://www.sciencealert.com/eerie-personality-changes-sometimes-happen-after-organ-transplants

[–] Lumisal@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

To be fair, I think anyone going through something as traumatic as basically being put into stasis and having their heart cut out and and then having one reattached would change a bit simply because of the process.

I mean, you don't keep stepping on Lego bricks barefoot after you've done so, and we expect people who have had a heart ripped out and then another one reinserted to act the same?...

[–] RestrictedAccount@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Many stories like this from fecal exchanges (trans-poo-sions)

[–] Atelopus-zeteki@fedia.io 4 points 2 days ago

Yes, that is also true. Many things make up the mind, and changing a major input, e.g. the microbiota that make a particular mix of short chain fatty acids and other neuro effective compounds, is going to change the cognitive outputs.

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[–] HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com 29 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Its not the same memory as your brain. your life story is not in your non nerve cells. they have memory the same as yeast has memory but everyone is aware of how we have muscle memory in reptitive tasks.

[–] Xeroxchasechase@lemmy.world 18 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I think muscle memory is just a phrase, but the training that makes and embed the "muscle memory" is essentially nural

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[–] BigTrout75@lemmy.world 14 points 3 days ago

"Muscle memory" is real.

[–] Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

Kwisatz Haderach here we come

[–] HawlSera@lemm.ee 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Isn't this literally the plot to the Reanimator?

[–] SlothMama@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago

Well, it's certainly the plot of Assassin's Creed

[–] troed@fedia.io 16 points 3 days ago (1 children)

There are many stories on how the receiver of a transplant has felt themselves being "changed", sometimes in ways that would remind people of the donor.

https://www.mdpi.com/2673-3943/5/1/2

MDPI is like the lowest quality slop journal. Like anything gets peer reviewed in that thing.

[–] Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 13 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Is there an element of literality to the term "muscle memory"?

[–] Septimaeus@infosec.pub 18 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Yes, insofar as many reflexive actions, enervation and fiber recruitment thresholds respond to training, such that they “remember“ actions you have performed many times before. There are many clusters of nerves throughout the body called ganglia that are responsible for low-latency control of various functions that would entail too much delay when controlled entirely by the brain.

Generally, the minimum input-process-activation turnaround time of the brain is about 4 hz (240-250 ms) which is too slow for many applications of motor function. But the “co-processing” allowed by the extended nervous system enables the body to, with practice, execute far more rapid and complex action sequences in response to local stimuli. Some actions can be triggered and completed before a signal even makes it to the brain.

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