Are Memories Transferable? Meet the Scientists Replicating an Infamous Study to Find Out
Source: Wired ·
In the 1960’s, an odd experiment showed planarian worms could transfer memories by consuming each other. It was a sensational finding—that is until the worms stopped learning.
From the source
The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine . It was the dead of winter in Boston. The surface of the Charles River was frozen solid. But Zachary Kelso braved the biting cold to finally put to rest a mystery that has haunted neuroscience labs for over half a century. To do that, Kelso, a research assistant in the Harvard lab of the neuroscientist Sam Gershman, needed some worms . Specifically, planarians: arrow-headed flatworms, which are among the simplest creatures to possess a brain and a nervous system with bilateral symmetry like ours. Normally, labs order these widely used model organisms from biological supply companies. But the mail-order worms weren’t up to snuff. So Gershman had dispatched Kelso to the Charles’ icy banks to catch some wild ones. “I thought, ‘I’m going to look crazy because I’m using a hammer to beat through the ice,’” Kelso recalled. “So I wore the more business end of business casual.” It wouldn’t be the last time Kelso found himself in…