Current Events > Is it possible for DNA to contain human memories?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Just wondering.

Like actual specific stuff.
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I would say so, yeah

"The original continues below. MIT researchers have shown, for the first time ever, that memories are stored in specific brain cells. By triggering a small cluster of neurons, the researchers were able to force the subject to recall a specific memory. By removing these neurons, the subject would lose that memory."

"Scientists have long assumed that memories and learned experiences built up during a lifetime must be passed on by teaching later generations or through personal experience. However, new research has shown that it is possible for some information to be inherited biologically through chemical changes that occur in DNA."
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DNA of the brain cells, or DNA in the gonads, where it really counts?
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fire810 posted...

"The original continues below. MIT researchers have shown, for the first time ever, that memories are stored in specific brain cells. By triggering a small cluster of neurons, the researchers were able to force the subject to recall a specific memory. By removing these neurons, the subject would lose that memory."

This passage doesn't imply anything about this question in particular.

fire810 posted...

"Scientists have long assumed that memories and learned experiences built up during a lifetime must be passed on by teaching later generations or through personal experience. However, new research has shown that it is possible for some information to be inherited biologically through chemical changes that occur in DNA.

In mice, they've found that certain olfactory receptors that are primarily generated through epigenetic action can be passed down to offspring. That's sort of the extent to the possible evidence for this.

Epigenetic events that underlie long term forms of plasticity, the one's we think as the primary mechanisms for memory formation, haven't been found, and wouldn't be expected to be hereditary. In fact, even that earlier mouse study was a shock.
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Laserion posted...

DNA of the brain cells, or DNA in the gonads, where it really counts?

I dunno. Brain cells i guess.
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fire810 posted...

I would say so, yeah

"The original continues below. MIT researchers have shown, for the first time ever, that memories are stored in specific brain cells. By triggering a small cluster of neurons, the researchers were able to force the subject to recall a specific memory. By removing these neurons, the subject would lose that memory."

"Scientists have long assumed that memories and learned experiences built up during a lifetime must be passed on by teaching later generations or through personal experience. However, new research has shown that it is possible for some information to be inherited biologically through chemical changes that occur in DNA."

So...are neuron's like totes the soul? If you place your neuron's into someone else's brain they'd remember what you did? Doesn't your body replace pretty much all cells except neurons? Is there any difference in taking our neuron's and putting them in a clone of you compared to you just living and having your body replace all the cells around them?

HOW DO I KNOW IF THE ME TODAY IS THE SAME ME THAT EXPERIENCED THE THINGS THAT I DID?! HOW DO I KNOW THAT I JUST DONT THINK I DID THESE THINGS?!

Sure, I have the scars and such...but these eyes, these ears,these feelings...they were not all 100% there when shit went down. Is a boat that's replaced every part but the journal logs of journey's past still the same boat?
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Unsugarized_Foo posted...

fire810 posted...

I would say so, yeah

"The original continues below. MIT researchers have shown, for the first time ever, that memories are stored in specific brain cells. By triggering a small cluster of neurons, the researchers were able to force the subject to recall a specific memory. By removing these neurons, the subject would lose that memory."

"Scientists have long assumed that memories and learned experiences built up during a lifetime must be passed on by teaching later generations or through personal experience. However, new research has shown that it is possible for some information to be inherited biologically through chemical changes that occur in DNA."

So...are neuron's like totes the soul? If you place your neuron's into someone else's brain they'd remember what you did? Doesn't your body replace pretty much all cells except neurons? Is there any difference in taking our neuron's and putting them in a clone of you compared to you just living and having your body replace all the cells around them?

HOW DO I KNOW IF THE ME TODAY IS THE SAME ME THAT EXPERIENCED THE THINGS THAT I DID?! HOW DO I KNOW THAT I JUST DONT THINK I DID THESE THINGS?!

Sure, I have the scars and such...but these eyes, these ears,these feelings...they were not all 100% there when shit went down. Is a boat that's replaced every part but the journal logs of journey's past still the same boat?

I think its safe to say that, as humans, we've only explored the first particle on top of the reality iceberg
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COVxy posted...

Ifire810 posted...

"The original continues below. MIT researchers have shown, for the first time ever, that memories are stored in specific brain cells. By triggering a small cluster of neurons, the researchers were able to force the subject to recall a specific memory. By removing these neurons, the subject would lose that memory."

This passage doesn't imply anything about this question in particular.

fire810 posted...

"Scientists have long assumed that memories and learned experiences built up during a lifetime must be passed on by teaching later generations or through personal experience. However, new research has shown that it is possible for some information to be inherited biologically through chemical changes that occur in DNA.

In mice, they've found that certain olfactory receptors that are primarily generated through epigenetic action can be passed down to offspring. That's sort of the extent to the possible evidence for this.

Epigenetic events that underlie long term forms of plasticity, the one's we think as the primary mechanisms for memory formation, haven't been found, and wouldn't be expected, to be hereditary. In fact, even that earlier mouse study was a shock.

so is that a yes or a no?
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no
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It's a "it's possible but unlikely and even if it were true it would contribute so little to what we think of as "memory".

Essentially, such a mechanism has been found in another mammal, but it was found in such a domain and species specific facet that it seems unlikely to generalize to humans. But, of course, that doesn't mean it won't be.
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Probably some rudimentary "memories/survival instincts". But nothing like the Assassin's Creed games.
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I read an amazing thing where they repeatedly subjected a caterpillar to a shock after spraying a smell near it.

They then let the caterpillar metamorphise into a butterfly (literally dissolves itself into soup and rearranges dna elements). The butterfly DID react with fear to the smell again so it retained something.

St0rmFury posted...

Probably some rudimentary "memories/survival instincts". But nothing like the Assassin's Creed games.

I remember seeing somewhere that it could be linked to evolution or something. This was about 8-9 years ago when the first assassin's creed game came out though so I'm not sure if it still holds any merit
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I'd say instincts get passed down, like how cats are afraid of cucumbers. But not specific memories.
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Yes
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You've been playing too much Assassins Creed, TC.
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We are not like the Goa'uld, then.
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I've heard some people who have a blood transfusion remember the memories of their donor...
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fire810 posted...

Unsugarized_Foo posted...

fire810 posted...

I would say so, yeah

"The original continues below. MIT researchers have shown, for the first time ever, that memories are stored in specific brain cells. By triggering a small cluster of neurons, the researchers were able to force the subject to recall a specific memory. By removing these neurons, the subject would lose that memory."

"Scientists have long assumed that memories and learned experiences built up during a lifetime must be passed on by teaching later generations or through personal experience. However, new research has shown that it is possible for some information to be inherited biologically through chemical changes that occur in DNA."

So...are neuron's like totes the soul? If you place your neuron's into someone else's brain they'd remember what you did? Doesn't your body replace pretty much all cells except neurons? Is there any difference in taking our neuron's and putting them in a clone of you compared to you just living and having your body replace all the cells around them?

HOW DO I KNOW IF THE ME TODAY IS THE SAME ME THAT EXPERIENCED THE THINGS THAT I DID?! HOW DO I KNOW THAT I JUST DONT THINK I DID THESE THINGS?!

Sure, I have the scars and such...but these eyes, these ears,these feelings...they were not all 100% there when shit went down. Is a boat that's replaced every part but the journal logs of journey's past still the same boat?

I think its safe to say that, as humans, we've only explored the first particle on top of the reality iceberg

Lame. I'd rather bummed to find out that as we grow old and cells replace each other, that the current me really died and while technically the same body, I just remember what the past cells did that make me think the current body did something when really it didnt.

Maybe thats why we think of future and past us (uses? what is the plural of us?). Current us wasn't there or isnt coming up ;-; We keep thinking about the end game being dying of old death, but really, we die multiple times, and the final time we just end up forgetting what the cumulative us had remembered forever.

I need to get high and dive into this shit Joe Rogan style.
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This is the entire premise behind the Assassin's Creed franchise.

Also no. Memories have a lot to do with neurons firing in your brain.
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