Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Wednesday May 16 2018, @02:18PM   Printer-friendly
from the post-hoc-ergo-propter-hoc? dept.

With RNA, Researchers Transfer Memories Between Sea Slugs

In the first chunk of their study, the team, led by David Glanzman, worked with groups of a marine slug called Aplysia. One group of slugs got shocked on the tail once every 20 minutes for a total of five shocks. The next day, they went through the same shock session. The point was to prime them to use what's called a defensive withdraw reflex — basically, the slug version of a flinch.

When Glanzman and his team later physically tapped these slugs on their tails, the creatures contracted for an average of 50 seconds. But when the team tapped another, shock-free group, those slugs only shied away for about one second.

Here's where things get interesting. The researchers then extracted ribonucleic acid (RNA) — the cellular messenger that carries out the genetic instructions of DNA — from the nervous systems of both the shock and non-shock groups. They took this RNA and injected it into a third set of slugs that hadn't had to deal with any shocks or taps. Seven of these slugs got the shock group's RNA, seven got the non-shock-group's RNA.

Next, the team tapped these RNA-injected slugs on their tails. Those that had received the shock group's RNA responded almost exactly like the shock group: They recoiled for about 40 seconds. "It was as though we transferred the memory," Glanzman said in a press release.

Also at Smithsonian Magazine.

RNA from Trained Aplysia Can Induce an Epigenetic Engram for Long-Term Sensitization in Untrained Aplysia (open, DOI: 10.1523/ENEURO.0038-18.2018) (DX)


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday May 16 2018, @05:53PM

    by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Wednesday May 16 2018, @05:53PM (#680467) Journal

    From TFA's Abstract, "Here, it is demonstrated that the memory for long-term sensitization in the marine mollusk Aplysia can be successfully transferred by injecting RNA from sensitized into naïve animals. Moreover, a specific cellular alteration that underlies sensitization in Aplysia, sensory neuron hyperexcitability, can be reproduced by exposing sensory neurons in vitro to RNA from trained animals."

    It would be interesting if it is true, but everything about this study seems to be in terms of reflex. I'll defer to neuroscientists but reflex conditioning is not necessarily memory in any classical sense. To the contrary, in mammals a reflex does not necessarily involve the brain at all. It doesn't involve "memory" but it can be trained.

    --
    This sig for rent.
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Interesting=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   3