In this study, the scientists simulated the process of spaced learning by examining two types of non-brain human cells — one from nerve tissue and one from kidney tissue — in a laboratory setting.

These cells were exposed to varying patterns of chemical signals, akin to the exposure of brain cells to neurotransmitter patterns when we learn new information.

The intriguing part? These non-brain cells also switched on a “memory gene” – the same gene that brain cells activate when they detect information patterns and reorganize their connections to form memories.

  • Shardikprime@lemmy.world
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    2 hours ago

    Yeah last week people on Lemmy were arguing that memory is the simplest thing to exist EVER and that musk’s neuralink meant we had matrix reloaded already at the corner

    The hubris never ceases to amaze me

  • MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml
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    9 hours ago

    Isn’t the title misleading? A cell switching on the same gen neurons use to connect, if exposed to substance used to transmit information, doesn’t mean it stores or transmits any memories. It seems it doesn’t even do anything more, like forming dendrites or “answering” chemically.

    Guess that’s just a side-effect of how the gen is exposed.

    • Mambabasa@slrpnk.net
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      4 hours ago

      It’s more than that. People who have had heart transplants can inherit memories and personality traits from the donor. Cells remember more than they let on and can pass these memories to the recipient.

      See this study. I think it’s safe to say we have some empirical evidence for this. In the linked study, there’s a kid who received a heart from another kid who died trying to retrieve a power ranger and somehow the donor knew that without anyone telling him. Another kid received a heart from a kid who drowned and he became afraid of water.

  • ValenThyme@reddthat.com
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    13 hours ago

    fascinating, this concept is a core to the theravadan buddhist practice of vipassana meditation, which is supposed to be what the buddha himself actually taught in his wandering classroom. I always took that bit with a grain of salt assuming it was just an old misunderstanding of what’s going on but the kind of non-thought memories appears to be exactly what is described.

    it’s called Vasana and it’s said to be like ‘perfume lingering in cloth’, the residual karma from our actions that shapes our future and influences automatic actions and preferences. Trauma is said to be stored in the body as well as Sankhara.

    I have always viewed vipassana as mental martial arts more than religion, and brushed off all the reincarnation and other inexplicable stuff. fascinating to hear scientists confirming what philosophers came up with thousands of years ago.

  • _bac@lemmy.world
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    20 hours ago

    Its interestng, but kidney cells are not exposed to patterns of neurotransmiters like nerve cells are. Cells can be reprogramed to be stem cells as well with the right pattern od signals but that does not mean that it really happens in the body.

  • Adderbox76@lemmy.ca
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    21 hours ago

    Not to be a debbie downer here, but it’s important to keep in mind that unless expressly stated otherwise, so-called discoveries that are only published in out-of-the-way (ie. not respected scientific journals) have usually not been peer reviewed or had their results replicated, which is the entire point of the scientific method.

      • bizarroland@fedia.io
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        1 day ago

        Okay but what you’re saying is if I hired a good enough marksman to shoot the cancer out of my body without killing me then that’s a good thing right?

        I mean, that’s basically what we do with gamma radiation and chemotherapy, just a little bit more ballistic, right?

    • AeroNaut@lemmy.world
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      6 hours ago

      Likely not that simple as there would be other factors at play, but good way of thinking. I’m no geneticist but that sounds like it may be a contributing factor, though memory in this case would be functional rather than personality-based.

  • HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com
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    1 day ago

    Its not the same memory as your brain. your life story is not in your non nerve cells. they have memory the same as yeast has memory but everyone is aware of how we have muscle memory in reptitive tasks.

    • Xeroxchasechase@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      I think muscle memory is just a phrase, but the training that makes and embed the “muscle memory” is essentially nural

      • HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com
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        23 hours ago

        yeah sorry I still feel that is neural just not all the way to the brain. I guess what I was trying to say if the article is not that cells hold your memory but that they hold their type of memories is a similar way.