Rewriting the school books (or burning them!) may be on the current extremist agenda due to bothersome facts. But a legitimate review may also be necessary because science continues to make incredible discoveries. Each time, they turn the tables on our general understanding of how basic things work. For instance, where do you store memories? Until now, most of us presumed we store them in the brain. Naturally, it’s what general education science teacher tell their students. But, as it turns out, our entire bodies seem to have the ability to respond to memories, too, as a new report from NYU reveals.
The lead researcher even suggested that “in the future, we will need to treat our body more like the brain.” According to him, learning over time “might be a fundamental property of all cells.”
“This discovery opens new doors for understanding how memory works and could lead to better ways to enhance learning and treat memory problems,” observed New York University’s Nikolay V. Kukushkin, the lead author of the study. “At the same time, it suggests that in the future, we will need to treat our body more like the brain—for example, consider what our pancreas remembers about the pattern of our past meals to maintain healthy levels of blood glucose or consider what a cancer cell remembers about the pattern of chemotherapy.”
Featured image by OlcayErtem/Pixabay with AI generation added.
As part of the study, New York University researchers engineered cells in the body to make “a glowing protein.” These cells included kidney and nerve tissue. When they observed this protein, they recorded when the cells’ memory gene activated. As it turned out, the memory gene turned on when they exposed the cells to chemical pulses similar to those of known neurotransmitter pulses in the brain.
They spaced out the pulses at intervals, a technique known as the “massed-spaced learning effect.” This is how we learn best: gradually, over time, with repetition. Alternatively, an inferior way to learn is cramming, like a stressed-out student about to take a test.
Vide by Explore Wonders about the NYU research on memories and the body and implications:
Fungi Are Making Memories, Too?
In related or connected news, a new fungi study has found that a wood-eating fungus passed a cognitive test “with flying colors,” according to PBS. Researchers from Japan found that the fungi “possess memory and decision-making abilities despite not having a central nervous system.” It’s more confirmation that the mycelium or “wood wide web” is much more complex than most folks in modern times ever knew. And it also shows that a form of learning is possible entirely without any brain or neurons.
Previously, I explored the neural transduction theory, that memories are not confined to the brain – or the body! Rather, our brains act like transducers, translating our experience of the material world while memories and consciousness are beyond earthly confines. (At least as we know it.) Following this line of thought, memory-making could be something done on a much larger scale: planetary intelligence. Going further, why should it stop at the scale of planets?
Imagery by Peter Gabriel, ‘Digging in The Dirt’:
Light, Crystalline Structures, and Memory
As an interesting aside, the glowing protein the researchers used is luciferase, a bioluminescent enzyme found in fireflies. This enzyme works with a crystalline substrate called luciferin to emit visible light.
“The name luciferin comes from the Latin lucifer, or light-bearer. Lucifer, of course, in Christian tradition is the name of Satan before his fall. So if it’s warm enough to see fireflies on Halloween, you can blame it on climate change and the devil,” states the American Chemical Society.
Speaking of crystalline structures, check out this post by Quantum Living Lifestyle. Reacting to the study of memory outside the body, they concluded, “We are a liquid crystal matrix that receives, stores and emits energy, including our trauma and memories.”
Image by DawnyDawny/Pixabay with AI generation with Vitruvian Man by OpenClipart-Vectors/Pixabay