this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2024
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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.

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[–] Metostopholes@midwest.social 185 points 11 months ago (6 children)

Memory is stored in the balls

[–] disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world 50 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (9 children)

Just to recap, sperm, pee, microplastics, and memories are stored in the balls? Am I missing anything? I can’t remember. Maybe my balls are too full of microplastics to recall.

[–] masterofn001@lemmy.ca 36 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)
[–] Sabata11792@ani.social 28 points 11 months ago

I'm sure you could fit a few dollars in loose change in there to.

[–] IMNOTCRAZYINSTITUTION@lemmy.world 12 points 11 months ago (3 children)
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[–] Fosheze@lemmy.world 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

You forgot about the wolves.

[–] atlas@sh.itjust.works 7 points 11 months ago

i forgot i put those there to control the deer population

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[–] ABCDE@lemmy.world 76 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] Endymion_Mallorn@kbin.melroy.org 30 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Technically, a handgun also kills cancer in vivo. The problem is the cost to the host body.

[–] bizarroland@fedia.io 12 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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?

[–] Endymion_Mallorn@kbin.melroy.org 11 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Exactly! The only difference is that those use very tiny bullets.

[–] Liz@midwest.social 6 points 11 months ago

Chemo only applies if it's doped with a radionuclide, otherwise it's just regular poison.

[–] Liome@pawb.social 40 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Do we need to format our kidneys before becoming a donor now?

[–] Atelopus-zeteki@fedia.io 33 points 11 months ago (4 children)

Maybe. There are numerous reports of people having changes in personality after organ transplants.

Personality changes following heart transplantation: The role of cellular memory https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31739081/

https://www.sciencealert.com/eerie-personality-changes-sometimes-happen-after-organ-transplants

[–] Drunemeton@lemmy.world 9 points 11 months ago

Damn, that’s interesting!

[–] Lumisal@lemmy.world 7 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

To be fair, I think anyone going through something as traumatic as basically being put into stasis and having their heart cut out and and then having one reattached would change a bit simply because of the process.

I mean, you don't keep stepping on Lego bricks barefoot after you've done so, and we expect people who have had a heart ripped out and then another one reinserted to act the same?...

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[–] Adderbox76@lemmy.ca 29 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] ValenThyme@reddthat.com 25 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months 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 24 points 11 months 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.

[–] Matty_r@programming.dev 19 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Its like the blockchain for you body.

[–] PainInTheAES@lemmy.world 18 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] Brickhead92@lemmy.world 9 points 11 months ago

Identifier of ownership

[–] troed@fedia.io 16 points 11 months ago (1 children)

There are many stories on how the receiver of a transplant has felt themselves being "changed", sometimes in ways that would remind people of the donor.

https://www.mdpi.com/2673-3943/5/1/2

[–] FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone 20 points 11 months ago

MDPI is like the lowest quality slop journal. Like anything gets peer reviewed in that thing.

[–] KaTaRaNaGa@lemmy.world 16 points 11 months ago

“The Body Keeps the Score”

[–] BigTrout75@lemmy.world 14 points 11 months ago

"Muscle memory" is real.

[–] Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 13 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Is there an element of literality to the term "muscle memory"?

[–] Septimaeus 18 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Yes, insofar as many reflexive actions, enervation and fiber recruitment thresholds respond to training, such that they “remember“ actions you have performed many times before. There are many clusters of nerves throughout the body called ganglia that are responsible for low-latency control of various functions that would entail too much delay when controlled entirely by the brain.

Generally, the minimum input-process-activation turnaround time of the brain is about 4 hz (240-250 ms) which is too slow for many applications of motor function. But the “co-processing” allowed by the extended nervous system enables the body to, with practice, execute far more rapid and complex action sequences in response to local stimuli. Some actions can be triggered and completed before a signal even makes it to the brain.

[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 8 points 11 months ago

Generally, the minimum input-process-activation turnaround time of the brain is about 4 hz (240-250 ms) which is too slow for many motor functions. But the “co-processing” allowed by the extended nervous system enables the body to, with practice, execute far more rapid and complex action sequences in response to local stimuli. Some actions can even be triggered and completed before a signal makes it to the brain.

Thank you. For some reason it makes me happy to know that.

[–] Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (5 children)

It seem like they're just saying kidneys remember kidney stuff, pancreases just remember pancreas stuff, etc etc.

It's not like your kidney remembers Aunt Jean has a mole on her nose.

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[–] Dagwood222@lemm.ee 9 points 11 months ago (9 children)

Read something like that in an old science fiction novel.

Old man's brain is placed in a young woman's body. Her brain was destroyed but most of her memories live on in her body.

[–] VubDapple@lemmy.world 10 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Robert Heinlein, I Will Fear No Evil

"Elderly billionaire Johann Sebastian Bach Smith is being kept alive through medical support and decides to have his brain transplanted into a new body. He advertises an offer of a million dollars for the donation of a body from a brain-dead patient. Smith omits to place any restriction on the sex of the donor, so when his beautiful young female secretary, Eunice Branca, is killed, her body is used—without his knowledge and to the distress of some of those around him."

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[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 7 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

I'd read that novel.

Old man hell bent on world domination, but really wants Johnny in math class to ask him to the dance on Friday.

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[–] Shardikprime@lemmy.world 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] Yewb@lemmy.world 23 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Musk is a snake oil salesman that buys other people's ideas and pays smart people to make it, then steals all the profits for himself.

Modern day Thomas Edison.

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[–] baldturkeyleg@lemmy.world 6 points 11 months ago (4 children)

So hold on a minute - does this mean there might be some truth to the whole “eat your fallen enemy to gain experience” thing? That’s wild.

[–] originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com 25 points 11 months ago (2 children)

naw. its more like the nerve pathways through the body also have their own node-weighting long before they get to the brain. those are used in process sometimes allowing for memory-like function

its still a generated system that you cant just eat

[–] NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world 12 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Are you sure I can't eat it? We should test this... for science.

[–] Libb@jlai.lu 7 points 11 months ago (4 children)

Are you sure I can’t eat it? We should test this… for science.

The question then being: would it still be considered science if it's not eaten raw but cooked and, say, accompanied with some wine?

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[–] jmiller@lemm.ee 16 points 11 months ago

Eating a dictionary to improve your vocabulary would be equally effective to that theory, and for many of the same reasons. (As far as information transfer is concerned)

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