{"id":502,"date":"2015-04-03T12:51:54","date_gmt":"2015-04-03T17:51:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=502"},"modified":"2015-04-03T12:51:54","modified_gmt":"2015-04-03T17:51:54","slug":"catching-up-with-the-movies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2015\/04\/03\/catching-up-with-the-movies\/","title":{"rendered":"Catching Up With the Movies"},"content":{"rendered":"

… think Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind<\/a>.\u00a0 At least in the sense of memory manipulation.\u00a0 Jessica Hamzelou in NewScientist<\/strong><\/em> (14 March 2015) reports scientists can implant false memories in mice<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

[Karim] Benchenane’s team used electrodes to monitor the activity of mice’s place cells [neurons that fire in response to being in or thinking about a specific place] as the animals explored an enclosed arena, and in each mouse they identified a cell that fired only in a certain arena location. Later, when the mice were sleeping, the researchers monitored the animals’ brain activity as they replayed the day’s experiences. A computer recognised when the specific place cell fired; each time it did, a separate electrode would stimulate brain areas associated with reward.<\/p>\n

When the mice awoke, they made a beeline for the location represented by the place cell that had been linked to a rewarding feeling in their sleep. A brand new memory \u2013 linking a place with reward \u2013 had been formed.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It seems so reasonable, but assuming this can be scaled up to human memory, it’s a trifle unsettling, especially if an electrode could be replaced with an electric cap.<\/p>\n

Or a remote device.<\/p>\n

I suppose I could talk about how memories are notoriously unreliable<\/a>; pictures and videos are much\u00a0 more trustworthy.\u00a0 But then think about how they can be modified.<\/p>\n

Reality is becoming far too plastic for my tastes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

… think Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.\u00a0 At least in the sense of memory manipulation.\u00a0 Jessica Hamzelou in NewScientist (14 March 2015) reports scientists can implant false memories in mice. [Karim] Benchenane’s team used electrodes to monitor the activity of mice’s place cells [neurons that fire in response to \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=502"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":506,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502\/revisions\/506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}