Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the USA successfully implanted false memories into the minds of laboratory animals (mice).
The rodents responded to these false memories as if they were real. This was because the neurological traces of the false memories were no different from those associated with the authentic ones.
Neuroscientist Susumu Tonegawa says, “Whether it is a false or a real memory, the brain mechanism that governs memory recall is the same.”
According to the researchers who conducted these experiments, they proved that implanting an idea into someone's mind is not just science fiction. At least, not anymore.
To implant false memories in the brains of mice, the researchers first placed several rodents in a chamber and allowed them to explore it until they became familiar with it.
Meanwhile, they discovered and “labeled” the cells encoding the newly formed memories of this chamber with channelrhodopsin, a protein produced by the brain to activate neurons when exposed to light.
The mice that took part in the experiment received a shock in a different room, were placed back in the first chamber, and showed signs of fear, even though nothing bad had ever happened in that room.
This proves that the mice had false memories.
"In this study, we believe that for the first time we have succeeded in implanting a false memory into the mouse brain," the researchers report.
Read the full article from MIT.
