After successful memory transfer in snails, humans might be next

A team of scientists have recently successfully transferred memories from one snail to another, paving way for human memory transfer.

The study was published in the journal eNeuro by researchers from The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). The study explains how they were able to transfer memories between marine sails, paving a way for performing the similar process in humans one day.

The snails in one group were trained to respond to a stimulus where a harmless electric shock was sent to the marine snail’s tail that triggered a defensive curl reflex, the response they show for protection from potential harm. Initially the snails curled for only a few second but, after repeated shocks, they were trained to curl for up to about 50 seconds. The snails that had not been given the shocks curled for only about one second, reported Eurek Alert.

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Then the team took ribonucleic acid (RNA), which produces proteins based on cells’ DNA, from nervous system of snails that received shocks and from the snails that did not. The RNA was then injected into seven snails that did not received any shocks and the RNA from the second group was injected into a control group of seven other snails that also had not received any shocks.

The results showed that the seven marine snails receiving RNA from the snails that were shocked behaved as if they themselves had received the shocks. They curled up for 40 seconds, as if they remembered how to respond to a stimulus even though they had never been through it before. One of the authors, Prof David Glanzman, said the result was ‘as though we transferred the memory,’ according to BBC.

The team believes that their research can one day permit them to treat memory-related illnesses in humans as the study states ‘modify, enhance, or depress memories’. This could lead to new ways for people with early-stage of Alzheimer’s to help retrieve some of their memories, or suggest novel treatments for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), reported Futurism.