[HN Gopher] Memory transferred between snails, challenging stand...
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       Memory transferred between snails, challenging standard theory
       (2018)
        
       Author : sethbannon
       Score  : 22 points
       Date   : 2021-03-12 06:05 UTC (16 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.statnews.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.statnews.com)
        
       | 1996 wrote:
       | Competing theories for where engrams (physical memories) are
       | stored:
       | 
       | - neuronal network / synapses
       | 
       | - microtubule network in inside the neurons
       | 
       | - now RNA recently joined the competition
       | 
       | As microtubules are protein, so made from RNA, this experiment
       | can not exclude microtubules
       | 
       | My guess: everything plays a role: individual neurons encode
       | internally bits of information (like an inode), while the
       | multidimensional network of neurons creates the structure (like
       | the filesystem), while electrical impulses on the network are
       | commands (like software) both made from files, and accessing some
       | other files.
       | 
       | The more advanced animals have more advanced filesystems with
       | partial RAID1 mirroring (experiences removing fully one
       | hemisphere) and caching (we know that's mostly the cerebellum job
       | for movements).
       | 
       | Sleep is both a log replay/filesystem scrub and defrag
       | (committing memories to long term storage if they are frequently
       | accessed)
        
         | wizzwizz4 wrote:
         | Microtubles aren't made from RNA, and your techy analogy seems
         | _incredibly_ forced to me.
        
           | airhead969 wrote:
           | I just scratched my head tbh. Maybe they really want organic
           | computing to work just like silicon-electrical computing?
           | 
           | At some point in cybernetic convergent evolution almost in
           | parallel with the technological singularity, there will be IT
           | architecture problems that will need to be addressed, and
           | people on HN will bikeshed if square auxiliary optic nerve
           | connectors or triangular ones are better. Just imagine being
           | hellbanned for bringing-up circular ones, and no one else is
           | able to interact with you. Eeek!
        
           | bostonsre wrote:
           | It's a guess like he said and an analogy geared toward a tech
           | audience on a tech forum seems apt. Don't see why there is a
           | need to talk down to him, this isn't a forum aimed at
           | biology.
        
         | andyxor wrote:
         | sleep is also 'reshuffling' of memory representations that's
         | continuously happening to reconcile internal inconsistencies
         | and converge on some coherent state that can help with real-
         | time predictions.
         | 
         | this is likely the actual learning mechanism as opposed to
         | error correction via stimulus-response reinforcement loop, so
         | popular in AI research.
         | 
         | Prof. Wilson has a great talk on learning as 'discovery of
         | hidden connections':
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=1147&v=Vf_m65MLdLI&feature=y...
         | 
         | also see his works on 'hidden state inference':
         | http://web.mit.edu/wilsonlab/html/publications.html
        
       | sodii wrote:
       | DNA methylation is required for this. The paper is about
       | epigenetic memory being transferred by transplanting
       | transcriptome, not about 'memory RNA'.
        
       | andyxor wrote:
       | previously https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17071036
        
       | dooglius wrote:
       | I don't see what the experiment says about _memory_ , it seems to
       | only show that a coarse level of fear/stress in response to
       | stimuli can be communicated. If you have the shock conditional on
       | something like a color of light and could show that the
       | conditional response was communicated, that would be much more
       | interesting.
        
         | Voloskaya wrote:
         | I don't get the distinction you are trying to make. Trained
         | snails learned to withdraw into their shells for long period of
         | times after a shock to avoid receiving any more shocks. That
         | learning was passed along to other snails through RNA. It's a
         | conditional response to an external stimuli that I would expect
         | to be stored just as any other memory?
        
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