# Mice given false memories



## Brian G Turner (Jul 26, 2013)

PKD, you loveable prophet, you  
BBC News - Scientists can implant false memories into mice


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## Ursa major (Jul 26, 2013)

So now we know why those aliens and "future" humans in 20th century cartoons were drawn with such big heads. The extra room was needed to hold all the optic fibres.


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## paranoid marvin (Jul 27, 2013)

Total Recall's coming true... Consider that a divorce!


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## Warren_Paul (Jul 27, 2013)

Sounds like Springs has material to use for the scientific background of one of her novels now.


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## paranoid marvin (Jul 27, 2013)

On a more serious note, it does somewhat unease me that this would be done to animals; it can't be a pleasant experience for them essentially having fear implanted into their brains. I do wonder if the article describes them as 'genetically engineered' in order to justify what is done; that if we made them , then we can do what we like with them. I guess people will say that the ends will justify the means if research allows humans to cope with traumatic events, but even so...


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## sooC (Jul 27, 2013)

paranoid marvin said:


> Total Recall's coming true... Consider that a divorce!



ahahaha!


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## Alex The G and T (Jul 27, 2013)

My ex-wife has been steeping in false memories, and anti-depressants,  for more than a dozen years.  

What else is new?


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## Dave (Jul 27, 2013)

Alex said:


> My ex-wife has been steeping in false memories, and anti-depressants,  for more than a dozen years.
> 
> What else is new?



I would only really worry if she has that huge jack-plug socket on the top of her head.


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## Boneman (Jul 27, 2013)

paranoid marvin said:


> On a more serious note, it does somewhat unease me that this would be done to animals; it can't be a pleasant experience for them essentially having fear implanted into their brains. I do wonder if the article describes them as 'genetically engineered' in order to justify what is done; that if we made them , then we can do what we like with them. I guess people will say that the ends will justify the means if research allows humans to cope with traumatic events, but even so...


 
I feel exactly the same. 

It has been proved (and I'm trying to find the scientific references) that it is not possible to extrapolate the information from one species to another - there will always be differences from one mammal to the next, because although their physiology is essentially the same, their response to stimuli (and drugs) will always differ. Until they find humans who they can stick these kind of things into, this kind of research will always be flawed. When aliens arrive and do this kind of thing to humans, there might be a little bit of outrage, but it's what we're doing to 'lesser' species. 

A comment attributed to Lord Bishop of Manchester in a vivisection debate, way back when,  (the 60s, I think...): "_My Lords, I have heard it said once and the saying has haunted me ever since - that if animals believed in the devil, he would look remarkably like a human being"._


_"In this day and age, with all the non-invasive scanning techniques available to the research community, it is inconceivable that an individual would be so callous as to take infant monkeys away from their mothers, damage their eyes, drill holes in their skulls, insert electrodes in their brains. How a person like that can sleep at night is beyond comprehension!"_

- Elliot M. Katz 

If the argument is that the ends justify the means, then where do we stop, if morality plays no part? 

_"If we cut up beasts simply because they cannot prevent us and because we are backing our own side in the struggle for existence, it is only logical to cut up imbeciles, criminals, enemies, or capitalists for the same reasons."
_        - C.S. Lewis 

Sorry for diverting the thread...


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## Allegra (Jul 27, 2013)

paranoid marvin said:


> On a more serious note, it does somewhat unease me that this would be done to animals; it can't be a pleasant experience for them essentially having fear implanted into their brains. I do wonder if the article describes them as 'genetically engineered' in order to justify what is done; that if we made them , then we can do what we like with them. I guess people will say that the ends will justify the means if research allows humans to cope with traumatic events, but even so...



I totally agree. I can't see the point for such research and what good may come out of it. I wouldn't mind a microchip with memories of several languages though.

And thank you for the quotes, Boneman. So true!


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## Mouse (Jul 27, 2013)

I'm with Boneman and PM. I hate this sort of things, it's absolutely disgusting.


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## Jo Zebedee (Jul 27, 2013)

Warren_Paul said:


> Sounds like Springs has material to use for the scientific background of one of her novels now.



I am to have no ideas for six months. I am banning myself...   But I'd have to say the ethical aspect of this would interest me more. I'm with BM and Mouse, it makes me pretty uncomfortable.


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## Abernovo (Jul 27, 2013)

paranoid marvin said:


> On a more serious note, it does somewhat unease me that this would be done to animals; it can't be a pleasant experience for them essentially having fear implanted into their brains...
> ...I guess people will say that the ends will justify the means if research allows humans to cope with traumatic events, but even so...



You all know I've spent time in biology labs, and part of the training does involve dissection, which means killing animals, even if my work didn't. Not the same as this, but putting my post in context. I also know that many drugs and treatments have been produced by experimentation on lab animal subjects. So, I'm always aware of the amount of lives saved by ethically uncomfortable (to put it mildly) methods.

However, with more non-invasive methods available, techniques that harm or kill the animals are (and rightly so) becoming less used. I know a lot of biological researchers who avoid using animals for experimentation. This case makes me uncomfortable, but I don't know the background to it, so can't say more than that. Pictures such as those in the article always make me pause for concern. And, as Boneman says, we all know that animal models do not always correspond to the human experience.



paranoid marvin said:


> I do wonder if the article describes them as 'genetically engineered' in order to justify what is done; that if we made them , then we can do what we like with them.


Now that would seriously worry me, but I can also see it being possible. After all, there are corporate attempts to copyright gene sequences. That mindset could have much larger and potentially even more worrying consequences.

Apologies for taking this thread even further off track.
As to the implantation of memories, it's interesting, but only confirming what has been observed, I think: that memories can be altered. Total Recall is on TV tomorrow night, though (the new one with Colin Farrell), so I might watch it.


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## Ursa major (Jul 27, 2013)

paranoid marvin said:


> I do wonder if the article describes them as 'genetically engineered' in order to justify what is done; that if we made them , then we can do what we like with them.


If genetically engineering an organism really means, in law, that the usual "rights" associated with an organism do not apply, I wonder how that would work where people are genetically engineered for medical (or "cosmetic") reasons.

Back to the real world, I suspect that the main legal implications concern the intellectual property rights over the genetic code of the engineered organism, not anything to do with the individual organisms "expressed" by that genetic code.


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