Link

The Era of Memory Engineering has Arrived

“We allow that our memories may fade and fail a bit, but otherwise, we go on the sanity-preserving assumption that there is one reason why we remember a particular thing: because we were there, and it actually happened. Now, a new set of experiments, led by MIT neuroscientists Steve Ramirez and Xu Liu in Susumu Tonegawa’s lab, shows that this needn’t be the case. Using a stunning set of molecular neuroscience techniques (no electrode caps involved), these scientists have captured specific memories in mice, altered them, and shown that the mice behave in accord with these new, false, implanted memories. The era of memory engineering is upon us, and naturally, there are big implications for basic science and, perhaps someday, human health and society…

…Naturally, one wonders whether these techniques might someday find human applications. Perhaps it would be possible to rebuild particularly cherished and important memories that have deteriorated with age or disease? Or perhaps, more provocatively, some might even embrace the idea of falsified memory – artificially adding in happiness where there is only remembered pain, or subtracting out enduring despair that’s long outlived its usefulness. These are some ethically tricky situations, to be sure. At the same time, though, it’s hard to not sympathize with someone, say a war veteran or a rape victim, who might want the emotional content of a specific, life-destroying memory modified.”

Link

Carboncopies: Realistic Routes to Substrate Independent Minds

“Carboncopies.org is a nonprofit organisation with a goal of advancing the reverse engineering of neural tissue and complete brains, Whole Brain Emulation and development of neuroprostheses that reproduce functions of mind, creating what we call Substrate-Independent Minds (SIM).”

Link

The Self That Remains When Memory is Lost

“Professor Pribram felt that when we lose our memory, we lose our entire sense of self. When I saw Tom, something fundamentally Tom was still there. Some of us call it personality, or essence. Some call it the “soul.” Whatever it is, the tumor that took Tom’s memory had not touched it.”

Berger et al.: A Cortical Neural Prosthesis for Restoring and Enhancing Memory

“A primary objective in developing a neural prosthesis is to replace neural circuitry in the brain that no longer functions appropriately. Such a goal requires artificial reconstruction of neuron-to-neuron connections in a way that can be recognized by the remaining normal circuitry, and that promotes appropriate interaction. In this study, the application of a specially designed neural prosthesis using a multi-input/ multi-output (MIMO) nonlinear model is demonstrated by using trains of electrical stimulation pulses to substitute for MIMO model derived ensemble firing patterns. Ensembles of CA3 and CA1 hippocampal neurons, recorded from rats performing a delayed-nonmatch-to-sample (DNMS) memory task, exhibited successful encoding of trial-specific sample lever information in the form of different spatiotemporal firing patterns. MIMO patterns, identified online and in real-time, were employed within a closed-loop behavioral paradigm. Results showed that the model was able to predict successful performance on the same trial. Also, MIMO model-derived patterns, delivered as electrical stimulation to the same electrodes, improved performance under normal testing conditions and, more importantly, were capable of recovering performance when delivered to animals with ensemble hippocampal activity compromised by pharmacologic blockade of synaptic transmission. These integrated experimental-modeling studies show for the first time that, with sufficient information about the neural coding of memories, a neural prosthesis capable of real-time diagnosis and manipulation of the encoding process can restore and even enhance cognitive, mnemonic processes.”

Article Link: (Berger et al., 2011)

Link

Music and Memory

“MUSIC & MEMORY℠ is a non-profit organization that brings personalized music into the lives of the elderly or infirm through digital music technology, vastly improving quality of life. We train nursing home staff and other elder care professionals, as well as family caregivers, how to create and provide personalized playlists using iPods and related digital audio systems that enable those struggling with Alzheimer’s, dementia and other cognitive and physical challenges to reconnect with the world through music-triggered memories. By providing access and education, and by creating a network of MUSIC & MEMORY℠ Certified elder care facilities, we aim to make this form of personalized therapeutic music a standard of care throughout the health care industry.”

Basset & Graham: Memorabilities – Enduring Relationships, Memories and Abilities in Dementia

“This paper reports the findings of a one-year qualitative investigation of the memories and activities of people with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s. We observed and interviewed 58 patient-carer dyads during home visits. The progression of the dementia symptoms was documented, and information was collected on social-relational events, as well as accounts of awareness, attention and anticipation, which are often neglected in research that focuses on the activities of daily living. The participants identified problems that were important to them; those with Alzheimer’s disease were aware that they were not as attentive as they once had been, that they could no longer rely upon the memory of, or consciously recollect and relive, a past experience, and that the future was more difficult to anticipate. The participants’ accounts describe relationships, memories and abilities – or ‘memor-abilities ’ – of a past and their effects on their present and future. Our findings differ from clinical representations of memory located solely in the individual. Instead, memories are regarded as a synergistic package of both social and individual meanings that ‘ leak ’ between the two. What experimental psychologists interpret as systems and processes are played out in the everyday world of people with Alzheimer’s disease as contextual, bounded and interdependent states of awareness, attention and anticipation. We maintain that memory is simultaneously individual and social, and that memorabilities are shared, co-constructed events and experiences in the past, present and future.”

Article Link: (Basset & Graham, 2007)

Basting: Looking Back From Loss – Views of the Self in Alzheimer’s Disease

“This article examines the narrative construction of Alzheimer’s disease in three autobiographies. Two of them use traditional linear structure, which demands a coherent, consistent ‘self’ as narrator. The third is structured as a journal, allowing the reader to experience more fully the disjointed nature of the disease. All three create a clear sense of ‘self’, which contrasts strongly the idea that Alzheimer’s disease entails a loss of ‘self’.”

Article Link: (Basting, 2003)

We Can Remember it for You Wholesale

‘We Can Remember It for You Wholesale’ is a short story by Philip K. Dick published in 1966. In it, the protagonist Douglas Quail visits a company called REKAL Incorporated in order to have ‘extra-factual memory’ implanted into his brain. What follows calls into question the divisions between fantasy and buried memory, and between false memory and reality. The story has been adapted into two films; Total Recall (1990) starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, and a 2012 film by the same title starring Colin Farrell.

Maguire & McGee: Becoming Borg to Become Immortal – Regulating Brain Implant Technologies

“What would it be like to be an already aware individual with an ongoing history imprisoned in a child’s body?”

“Today, intense interest is focused on the development of drugs to enhance memory; yet, these drugs merely promise an improvement of normal memory, not the encyclopedic recall of a computer-enhanced mind combined with the ability to share information at a distance. The potential of brain chips for transforming humanity are astounding. This paper describes advances in hybrid brain–machine interfaces, offers some likely hypotheses concerning future developments, reflects on the implications of combining cloning and transplanted brain chips, and suggests some potential methods of regulating these technologies.”

Article Link: (Maguire & McGee, 2007)

The Mystery of Memory

“The Mystery of Memory, the first documentary within the AstraZeneca Nobel Medicine Initiative, is a 30 minute documentary which delves into the foundations of today’s memory research which was laid by early 20th Century Nobel Prize-awarded pioneers, and uncovers how today’s neuroscientists are helping to find new treatments for disorders of memory.”