PBS NOVA Memory Hackers HD

Summary

Memory is a fascinating aspect of our identity, pivotal yet enigmatic. In PBS NOVA's "Memory Hackers," scientists gain unprecedented insights into how memories are formed, stored, and manipulated. The program delves into groundbreaking research and technologies painting a picture of memory as a biological process subject to modification. From uncovering superior autobiographical memory in people like Jake, a young boy with extraordinary recall abilities, to exploring the potential of altering and erasing memories, this episode unveils the profound mysteries and future possibilities surrounding memory, revealing its fallibility and the implications of being able to literally edit our pasts.

Highlights

• Jake, an 11-year-old, showcases a unique memory ability, raising questions about human potential. 🤔
• Research indicates that recalling a memory alters it, potentially editing our past with each remembrance. 🔄
• Innovative treatments show promise in erasing phobias, hinting at new possibilities for therapeutic practices. 🎉
• Optogenetics allows scientists to manipulate memories in mice, pointing to futuristic interventions. 🚀
• Whilst the ability to change memories could be revolutionary, it also challenges our perception of truth and identity. 🙃

Key Takeaways

• Memory, a key to our identity, is far from infallible and can be edited, erased, or altered. 🧠
• Some individuals possess incredibly superior autobiographical memory, reshaping our understanding of memory's limits. 🤯
• Innovations in neuroscience reveal the possibility of rewriting traumatic memories, offering therapeutic potential. 🔍
• Our recollection is not a static record but a dynamic process that changes each time we remember. 🔄
• The capability to manipulate memory raises ethical questions about the sanctity and reality of our past experiences. ⚖️

Overview

Imagine if you could remember every single detail of your life. For 11-year-old Jake, this isn't a hypothetical scenario but a reality due to his highly superior autobiographical memory. His unique ability thrusts us into the realm of memory's potential, challenging our beliefs about what the human brain can retain. Yet, the true marvel of memory lies not just in its storage abilities but its nature as a dynamic, adaptable entity.

Groundbreaking research featured on PBS NOVA reveals how memory operates more like a computer file rather than a sealed book in a library. Every recall potentially alters the memory, interweaving it with new information, emotions, and perceptions. Scientists are tapping into this reconsolidation process, exploring therapies to erase fears or restructure traumatic memories, highlighting memory's malleability.

Optogenetics, a cutting-edge technology, now enables scientists to activate or suppress specific memories in mice using light, showcasing a remarkable leap in memory research. Though these advancements hold therapeutic promise, they beckon us to contemplate the ethical dimensions of memory manipulation. As the boundaries of memory blur, we're asked to reconsider the very nature of reality and identity.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 01:30: Introduction to Memory The chapter titled 'Introduction to Memory' explores the fundamental role memory plays in shaping our identity. It touches upon the concept that, without memory, we lose our sense of self. The transcript mentions the ongoing scientific investigations into the workings of memory, highlighting that understanding memory remains shrouded in mystery. Scientists are actively examining the brain to visualize memory formation, leading to surprising discoveries. The chapter suggests that our memories are not always accurate and can be manipulated, hinting at the ability to alter specific memories deliberately. Furthermore, it raises a thought-provoking idea that perhaps natural memory mechanisms require some adjustments.
• 01:30 - 03:30: The Gift and Complexity of Memory The chapter titled "The Gift and Complexity of Memory" explores the concept of memory editing and manipulation. It dives into the possibility of implanting and deleting memories, including fears such as arachnophobia. The chapter raises questions about the ethical implications and potential reality of rewriting past experiences with advanced technologies. It echoes astonishment at how these developments can significantly alter our understanding and interaction with our inherent fears, suggesting a future where memories can be selectively edited at will.
• 03:30 - 05:00: The Mystery of Memory In 'The Mystery of Memory', the discussion touches on the inevitability and intriguing nature of memory. The mention of 'memory hackers' and the repeated phrase 'I remember' suggest a focus on both the exploration and the manipulation of human memory, hinting at technological or psychological elements involved.
• 05:00 - 10:30: Jake Hasler: A Case of Superior Memory The chapter titled 'Jake Hasler: A Case of Superior Memory' delves into the concept of memory. Typically, we think of memory as a way to recall everyday information like finding our keys or remembering school facts. However, memory encompasses much more than that. It includes our earliest recollections, such as memorable childhood incidents like falling off a horse at the age of five, or significant life events like meeting one's best friend for the first time in kindergarten. This chapter highlights the profound and intricate nature of human memory, emphasizing its role as a comprehensive record of our lives.
• 10:30 - 15:00: Understanding Memory Mechanisms In this chapter titled 'Understanding Memory Mechanisms,' the narrator shares a poignant reflection on the essence of memories. They discuss personal life events, citing the birth of their daughter in 1925 as a moment of profound happiness, contrasted with the deep sorrow experienced at their father's passing. The narrative emphasizes that humans are essentially composites of their memories, which fundamentally shape self-perception and understanding.
• 15:00 - 20:30: Eric Kandel's Discoveries on Memory The chapter titled "Eric Kandel's Discoveries on Memory" discusses the vividness and complexity of human memory. It illustrates how detailed memories can be, capturing sensory elements like smells and sounds, and even specific visual details such as clothing. The transcript highlights the speed and complexity of memory processes, emphasizing their significance and power.
• 25:00 - 31:00: Kareem Nader's Research on Memory Recall The chapter titled 'Kareem Nader's Research on Memory Recall' explores the ongoing mystery of how memory works. Despite common beliefs, our understanding of memory is limited and scientists are only beginning to scratch the surface of this complex subject.
• 30:00 - 39:40: Reconsolidation Therapy for Phobias This chapter introduces the intriguing and complex subject of memory, highlighting it as one of the biggest mysteries on par with fundamental questions about the universe and human existence. It teases the idea that an eleven-year-old boy might possess insights that could help unravel the enigma of how we are able to recall past events as if they are happening in the present. This setup suggests a focus on both the scientific challenges and potential breakthroughs in understanding memory, specifically in the context of reconsolidation therapy for phobias.
• 37:30 - 43:00: False Memories and Eyewitness Testimonies The chapter discusses Jake Hassler, a seemingly normal fifth grader, who is being studied by Washington University researchers. The focus seems to be on his memory, as there are implications regarding false memories and eyewitness testimonies. The narrative also mentions a specific event, the World Series Game 7 on October 28, 2011, where Chris Carpenter pitched for St. Louis and Matt Harrison for the Rangers. Jake's study may be interconnected with understanding how people remember or misremember events.
• 43:00 - 49:00: Optogenetics and Future of Memory Manipulation The chapter discusses a child with an extraordinary memory, able to recall past events with precision, such as watching 'Iron Man 3' on May 4th, 2013, which was a Saturday. His abilities are deemed unusual, possibly hinting at future advancements in memory manipulation and optogenetics.
• 49:00 - 59:00: The Nature and Purpose of Memory This chapter delves into the complexities of human memory, exploring how it functions and its significance. It begins with a discussion on how uncommon it is for children to exhibit exceptional memory capabilities, using the example of Osama bin Laden's death date to illustrate precise recollection of events by individuals like Jake. It touches on personal reflections, contrasting the speaker's perception of their memory with Jake's extraordinary recall ability, raising questions about the underlying mechanisms of memory. The narrative suggests that while many might not consider their memory remarkable, some individuals possess the extraordinary ability to remember minute details from virtually every day, highlighting the mystery surrounding memory retention and recall.

PBS NOVA Memory Hackers HD Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 [Music] memory it's the key to our identity without memory you're nothing it's who we are but how does it actually work it's a huge mystery today scientists are probing our brains like never before you see and memory be formed in front of your eyes finding clues that lead us to shocking new places you know your memory is not as accurate as you think it is we can tinker with a specific memory at will perhaps mother nature needs a little bit of tweaking on the dials from
• 00:30 - 01:00 editing memories we can implant a fossil race to deleting our worst fears it was unbelievable and I was standing there like how can this be possible I used to be terrified of spiders we targets and you can't erase the fear memory itself are we approaching the day were at the flick of a switch we can rewrite our past being able to use new technologies to edit memories is
• 01:00 - 01:30 frightening I think that it's a matter of when this happens not a matter of if it'll happen memory hackers right now on Nova I remember I remember I remember mm-hmm
• 01:30 - 02:00 memory we know it as a record of our lives how to find our keys or recite facts from school but stop and think about it it's so much more from your earliest memory falling off of a horse at about five years old when I walked into kindergarten and I met my best
• 02:00 - 02:30 friend by 1925 that we moved to 513 spring average your happiest when my daughter was born when she like came out see a real-life human being free the first breath of fresh air or saddest but the death of my father we are little but the sum of our memories it's who we are that's how we understand ourselves in
• 02:30 - 03:00 our lives consider for a moment just how vivid a memory can be the smells the sounds and of the shoes the socks the pants and shirt I wore it was like it happened yesterday I do have a picture in my head you can see it that is a remarkably complex computational process that memory achieved within milliseconds that's an incredible powerful gift how
• 03:00 - 03:30 is this gift possible how does the world get into our heads and turn into a memory how does memory actually work turns out that's one of the biggest mysteries in science today if you go and ask most people they would say they understand memory but the truth is really rather far from that we sort of understand the tip of the iceberg we're just kind of nibbling around the big
• 03:30 - 04:00 social mystery of memory how do I bring back in time now something that happened to me long ago it's a very difficult problem that we haven't solved memory is the biggest mystery it's as big as the question of what is universe why are we here could this eleven-year-old boy hold one of the keys to unlocking the mystery on first glance
• 04:00 - 04:30 Jake Hassler looks like a normal fifth grader but as Washington University's rowdy rod occur is discovering he seems to be anything but what happened Friday October 28 2011 a World Series game 7 Cardinals 162 who are the pitchers for the team's Chris Carpenter for st. Louis Matt Harrison for the Rangers [Music] [Applause] we're just getting to know Jake and just starting to study him he's obviously a
• 04:30 - 05:00 very bright kid different kind of very powerful memory let's try a different day here how about May 4th 2013 that was a Saturday and I saw it Iron Man 3 he appears to have pretty unique abilities so he can tell you what he did years ago to this date and that's very very unusual in and of itself and
• 05:00 - 05:30 and to find it in a child is particularly unusual what was Osama bin Laden killed May 2nd 2011 in Pakistan May 1st 11 in USA I mean it's amazing I've never felt like my memory was particularly bad but compared to Jake's clearly live it's just a mystery as to what's going on here Jake can remember details from almost every day of his
• 05:30 - 06:00 life since age 7 once he started speaking really we noticed he was different what are the 13 colonies yeah I remember taking them to the grocery store one time and he knew where all the items work by aisle it's it's a little bit like having a computer living with you we'd all remember getting a pet but the exact date what day did I pick up Gracie
• 06:00 - 06:30 in Wisconsin March 31st where did I fly into Minneapolis st. Paul what I used for dinner the night I was in Wisconsin cheese curds that is correct no doubt that there's something different going on there what's different about Jake is that he has a CH Sam highly superior autobiographical memory highly superior you remember days from your life in lots of detail like
• 06:30 - 07:00 what day of the week was of it and you can't forget about 2004 Jim Maga is a pioneer in the science of memory he discovered H Sam 15 years ago and when did you meet with me ah June 28 2008 so far out of the several thousand tested he's discovered 55 adults who have this amazing ability Saturday the Panera Bread in Newport Beach I can give him
• 07:00 - 07:30 any date say 10 years ago five years ago 20 years ago and so on do you know what Elvis Presley died August 16 77 and their performance will be at least 80% correct and maybe a hundred percent correct depending upon the particular individual one of the best memories maga has ever tested belongs to someone you might recognize actress Marilu Henner from the hit show taxi I knew is a very young child that I had a very unusual memory ever they called me miss memory
• 07:30 - 08:00 you know miss univac the memory kid things like that name calling aside they're not geniuses in fact on average they have normal IQs they are not superior in other forms of learning like book learning standard laboratory learning tasks and so on I think a misconception as you probably know that people have they think it's some type of autistic savant thing that we're using some type of mathematical calculation like in Rain Man you know yeah
• 08:00 - 08:30 definitely not Rain Man so what gives them this amazing ability Maga has scanned over a dozen H Sam's and found some intriguing hints for example an area in the brain associated with memory the uncinate fasciculus is more active in age Sam's there are some differences in the brain they're statistically significant but they have not given us a pattern such that we can say this is the neurobiological basis of
• 08:30 - 09:00 age Sam what is it about their brains that enables this ability that's the open question and that's where Jake comes in he is the youngest person ever discovered with H Sam and here at Washington University scientists are mapping his brain with new imaging technologies over the next year they'll test his memory while doing hundreds of scans alright Jake so what happened on April 8 2013 I went to the st. Louis Zoo
• 09:00 - 09:30 when they are finished they will have perhaps the most comprehensive picture ever of a child's brain they were getting loads and loads of data on so it's very very exciting I mean if to do this in a normal person and this comprehensible way would be really exciting and evictee to be able to do it on a child who has particularly unique abilities is extra special then they'll compare Jake scans to other children's to see if they can unlock the
• 09:30 - 10:00 secret of what makes his memory so extraordinary that's a chance of a lifetime I can't write a grand thing we're gonna go look for the hope is that this little boy's brain could help answer some big questions about how our memory works Jake clearly is able to extract from markable amounts of information from his brain but we don't know if you are I have that information in us but we just can't remember it or if it
• 10:00 - 10:30 just doesn't get encoded into our brain function in the first place the mystery with Jake and the other H Sam's is do they actually keep more memories than the rest of us or do we all have this wealth of detail buried deep inside our brains we just can't get at it if we can understand how he harnesses that to be able to generate that within ourselves could be a very powerful tool there is potential there that we will learn something truly new and important about the functioning of the most complicated
• 10:30 - 11:00 and interesting known structure in the universe and that's our brain and the most important thing it does is learn and remember but what exactly is a memory amazingly this simple question has stumped thinkers for ages until the 1950s few clues emerged and then came a single patient who would change everything when
• 11:00 - 11:30 I was a young researcher learning was learning and memory was memory and it was just you know a thing it happens and then along came the findings of Brenda Milner and her subject HM HM stands for Henry mOLAISON patient zero in the study of memory after a childhood bicycle accident Mollison began to suffer severe epileptic seizures to try and quell those seizures neurosurgeons performed
• 11:30 - 12:00 an operation where they removed the parts of his brain that they thought were creating those seizures much of what they removed came from a part of the brain called the hippocampus after the surgery his seizures were gone but there was an alarming side effect from that point forward he could no longer make any new memories he was what we call densely amnesiac it could only mean one thing the hippocampus must be the part of the
• 12:00 - 12:30 brain responsible for creating new long-term memories this in itself was a breakthrough but that was just the start Brenda Milner wanted to know despite his amnesia could he still have some form of memory it was a very nice person he was very cooperative he fortunately for us he liked doing tests
• 12:30 - 13:00 he liked puzzles so she came up with a puzzle to trace a star shape using only a mirror to see his hand if you try this it's jolly difficult but normal subjects with practice a few trials learn to do this thing because HM appeared to have zero ability to make new long-term memories he should be hopeless he shouldn't be able to learn anything how's he going to do I didn't know I didn't know no I did and in fact every
• 13:00 - 13:30 time Milner asked him to train he claimed he'd never done the task before but his performance betrayed him he got better and better until I was so excited because this was a breakthrough he can't remember the events of his life but he seems to see can't possibly learn motor skills the fact that HM could remember motor skills but not new events in his life meant
• 13:30 - 14:00 that memory couldn't be just one thing we had to leave behind the notion there was just one kind of memory we now knew that there are different kinds of memory in those different kinds of memories depend on different parts of the brain knowing where memories are in the brain is one thing but how did they get there how does a long-term memory get written in the brain in the first place these
• 14:00 - 14:30 are the questions that have driven Nobel Prize winner Eric Kandel for over 60 years it all started back in Vienna on his ninth birthday I received a marvelous little toy car that I drove with great pleasure through our small apartment two days later was Kristallnacht the infamous night of broken glass in that violent prelude to the Holocaust thousands of Nazi soldiers
• 14:30 - 15:00 stormed the Jewish neighborhoods in Vienna November 9th there was a knock on the door and two Nazi policemen came in and said pack all your things when we came back a week later everything of value is gone including my little toy car that was a very painful experience a painful experience that would define his life's work everyone
• 15:00 - 15:30 who went through the Holocaust there are memories that you could never forget Kandel wanted to know how did that experience become a memory he would carry with him for life that got me interested in psychology and psychoanalysis and when I got interested mad I said what's the central question in psychoanalysis it's memory how we recall things but where to start his biggest lead was Milner's early work with HM the hippocampus is crucial for forming new memories but how do they get
• 15:30 - 16:00 there could there be a physical mechanism on the cellular level so I thought I would record from single cells in the hippocampus and those cells would be so unique they would speak to me about my situation within months he was able to record the sound of hippocampal neurons firing our colleagues of euphoric but we didn't earn the Thorne thing about learning and memory so I realized when I needed to take a reductionist approach and I thought I would use a simple animal with a simple nervous system simple behavior try to
• 16:00 - 16:30 study that enter a place' californica a giant sea slug with one of the simplest nervous systems in the animal kingdom one of the great Giants in the field thought I was throwing my career weight in my naivete i was confident that this would be right he thought if he could just isolate the cellular changes that occurred when a pleasure learned simple tasks it would be the key to understanding our memory humans have neurons sea slugs have neurons they're
• 16:30 - 17:00 not that different right even though at the level of DNA our DNA is not so terribly different the same fundamental kinds of changes should underlie memory to test his hypothesis candles first step was to create a memory in the sea slug to do that he trained it to fear a light touch if you touch it in the siphon it'll withdraw the siphon the siphon is the slugs water spout when it is touched it also withdraws its Gill
• 17:00 - 17:30 slightly as a protective reflex but pair that touch touch with a mild shot you get a much stronger reaction and do it repeatedly now when you touch the animals siphon again even weeks later without a shock it reacts as if it got shocked somehow it remembers that that light touch means shock it has formed a long-lasting memory the
• 17:30 - 18:00 question is how can Dell had a hunch if he could just replicate that touch experiment with single cells he could see exactly what was going on to make a memory we could take the cells out of the animal and put it into the cell culture and reconstruct the neural circuit we could look at each level and see what happened so long-term I mean that was this huge breakthrough what Eric can tell really did was he took
• 18:00 - 18:30 this sort of phenomenon of memory and turned it into a biological question what are the changes that are happening that give rise to memory to find out candles team extracted two neurons from the sea slug this is a sensory neuron from its siphon and that's a motor neuron from the tail they are connected by a single synapse synapse is the point
• 18:30 - 19:00 of contact where one neuron talks to another then to simulate a long-term memory just like with the live animal candle repeatedly stimulated the sensory neuron and when he did suddenly something magical happened new synaptic connections started to grow this made us realize for the first time that the long-term memory actually involves an anatomical change in the brain whereby
• 19:00 - 19:30 new connections are being formed and that just really blew us away the first time we saw it that was a phenomenal discovery because it showed us for the first time that memory involves a structural physical change in the brain that became the foundation for our whole conceptual basis for understanding memory using today's technology you can witness this process firsthand this shows you the nucleus in the cell after repeated stimulation the neurons nucleus
• 19:30 - 20:00 starts to pump out these tiny glowing specks called mRNA recipes for building proteins they're about to travel down to the synapse with instructions to build new connections and you see this magnificent voyage that this particle which is carrying messenger named to the synapses when it gets there the instructions are released and the new connections grow seen here in green we
• 20:00 - 20:30 see a memory being formed in front of your eyes these anatomical changes occur in your brain where you learn and remember something from sea slugs to humans these physical changes are considered the biological basis of memory mister article face at this point that the mechanisms that he is uncovered are fundamental ones to learning and memory for all of us candles work launched a new way of
• 20:30 - 21:00 probing memory grounded in biology and built around a simple premise the growth of new connections is what allows a memory to persist for days months even years but that was just a piece of the picture a basic mechanism for how memory works at the level of single cells even in a sea slug a memory is made up of about 50 neurons out of 20,000 in a
• 21:00 - 21:30 human it's more like tens of thousands out of a hundred billion somehow it's this network that stores a memory which begs the question where exactly does a particular memory live in us to this day that remains a mystery but we aren't without clues in the last 25 years new imaging tools have allowed a generation of explorers to chart memory in the
• 21:30 - 22:00 human brain and today we can finally begin to draw a rough map of where some of our most treasured memories live take something like a first kiss so most people remember their first kiss my necklace here girl there was this Italian - eating Italian she's like this is something people do
• 22:00 - 22:30 we like each other I was like okay I like you I remember you know sort of planning you know this kiss for like a week your friend whispered to me make a move and walk faster and all of a sudden Lauren and I were alone and have a grove of trees it takes my face like this and place one on me it was like the universe exploded or something like that it just felt like
• 22:30 - 23:00 suddenly everything was different the question becomes then where is the memory and what we started to understand is that there isn't a nicely sort of packaged memory that sort of folded up like a letter and sort of placed inside of an envelope in one specific area of the brain different parts of memories are coded in different locations of the brain think about your first kiss the visual elements are coded at the back of
• 23:00 - 23:30 the brain in the visual cortex the smell components are coded in the olfactory cortex just above the nose the motoric the kinesthetic elements that coded up here in the motor cortex the emotional elements are coded in deep brain structures like the amygdala and together it's the hippocampus there's going to grab ahold of those individual brain anatomical areas there's balloons of information and it's going to bind
• 23:30 - 24:00 them together and produces a memory that you're capable of remembering so if different parts of a memory live in different parts of the brain and we know that the growth of new connections is important for storing them that would suggest that every memory is physically tattooed onto our brains so how come we don't remember them all the question is if they're these structural changes that give rise to memory but memories are changeable and dynamic how
• 24:00 - 24:30 can that be perhaps the answer can be found in the act of remembering itself think about it a memory only comes alive when you recall it what happens in your brain each time you recollect a past experience that's what Kareem Nader wondered his quest for answers started when he was a grad student at one of candles lectures Eric Kandel came and
• 24:30 - 25:00 gave this brilliant talk yeah beautiful pictures showing that synapses could grow over time the work is very elegant yeah I took everyone's breath away looking at those pictures gave nadir an idea hey why would all this have happened just once wouldn't it be cool if all this happened again when he recalled the memory if candles work helped establish that memories can't form without new proteins that build new connections what happens
• 25:00 - 25:30 to those connections when you remember something at the time memory was pictured kind of like a library the underlying Dogma was that when you formed a memory it was filed away in your brain and that's it it was there now forever it's called consolidation you can't modify it it just is it's just in the brain so when you remember your first kiss you pull out that book look at it
• 25:30 - 26:00 and put it back though it may fade over time or get lost in the stacks the original story or memory is always still there mater wondered could this really be true or is it possible that just the act of recalling the memory could rewrite the story to find out Nader designed an experiment when Kareem told me he wanted to do that experiment I
• 26:00 - 26:30 probably said something like don't do it don't waste your time but maybe a smart guy went up and did it so Nader decided to put his idea to the test he started by training rats to fear the sound of a tone okay so there's a Jim by pairing it with a mild shock now there's the Chuck and so right now he's really scared he doesn't like this at all just like candles sea slugs the rats quickly learned to fear the tone alone
• 26:30 - 27:00 they have formed a long-term memory that the tone predicts shock so every time it hears the tone so you see even though there's no shock the animal is freezing it's afraid we know the rats brains have built new connections to store the memory but what happens to those connections when the rat recalls the memory to find out Nader first plays the tone
• 27:00 - 27:30 to remind the rat of his fear and when he freezes the next part is gonna be giving him a compound roughly the compound is an ism Ison a drug known to block the proteins needed to build the connections that store new memories but Nader's rats have already formed the memory they're just recalling it if memory consolidation really is like a book in a library the drug should have no effect the rats brains should have built a permanent memory and they should
• 27:30 - 28:00 still freeze when they hear the tone so if the memory is wired in the brain the stroke should have absolutely no effect but now when nadir plays the tone oh my god now you see he keeps moving you would think that the animals should be freezing if it still had the memory there but now it's acting as if the memory has been erased from its mind as if it never learned to fear the tone in the first place the memory appears to be gone my jaw
• 28:00 - 28:30 just dropped I just couldn't believe it so I ran into my supervisors office going holy can't believe this happen already I mean the probability is happening it's like zero because a drug known to block the formation of new memories also blocked them during recall it means the act of remembering must make memories vulnerable to change in other words it's not this you have a memory you encode it and it's stuck there but instead what it means is that
• 28:30 - 29:00 every time that memory is recalled it is vulnerable to alteration natives discovery that anytime you recall the memory you essentially disrupt it was a significant advance it changes everything we think about memory it turns out memories not at all actually like putting a book away in the library of the brain but it's more like bringing up a file on your computer and constantly modifying that file the theory is every time you recall
• 29:00 - 29:30 something you have to pull it up off the hard drive to view it to return it to long term memory you have to hit save and reconsolidate the memory by creating new proteins to essentially rewire the memory into your brain imagine something precious in a box and then each time you take it out it changes a little bit and then you put it back now take it out changes a little bit that's how your memory works the idea that the simple act of remembering could make your memories vulnerable to change
• 29:30 - 30:00 transformed our understanding of memory within a few years Nader's findings were replicated in dozens of species and led to over a thousand experiments even reportedly inspired the movie Eternal Sunshine of the spotless mind memories but what if this isn't just the stuff of movies what if it's possible to use reconsolidation in humans perhaps to erase certain
• 30:00 - 30:30 memories like the ones that keep you up at night like I'm terrified of heights I don't want to be on a ladder I don't want to be on the second floor I don't like to be looking down I can't tell you the last time I've been repor can't tell you last time I've owned a bathing suit but I mean the water gets like probably right here and it's like the elevators snakes of course I don't know what it is about peace but I just can't I can't be around them
• 30:30 - 31:00 spiders I'm petrified of spiders even the smallest ones terrified if I if I see a spider I I don't want to come near it I'm really scared of spiders or at least I used to be but now I'm just completely relaxed sitting here with its wrench enough and is really crazy ever since she was a little girl Sasha de Waal has been plagued by her
• 31:00 - 31:30 fear of spiders but thanks to a new therapy using reconsolidation that fear seems to have been erased yeah I'm treading a poisonous spider the scientist who cured Sasha is Meryl Kent from the University of Amsterdam when she heard about Kareem Nader's work she immediately saw the potential sorry about the really thrilled I realized if this is gonna work for humans this is yeah very important news
• 31:30 - 32:00 using reconsolidation she's developed a treatment to erase patient's lifelong fears you scare me yeah just fear yeah when I sleep I dream about it I'm just very scared for the treatment we will walk to the other side of the room and there is a terrarium thank visitor on table in it I'm going to ask you to touch the tarantula okay
• 32:00 - 32:30 they are not poisonous yeah well Oh tarantulas are poisonous walk to the yellow line it's very good you are doing very good yeah just like with Nader's rats the first step is to get Jaron to drop the memory of his fear we ask our participants to
• 32:30 - 33:00 approach the tarantula which triggers the original fear memory how much distress do you feel right now dry mouth yeah shaking yeah you are doing very very well and try to look here don't avoid it and stay here it's
• 33:00 - 33:30 very important that you see it yeah just put your hand here and then stop yeah what do you think that will happen approaching the spider makes the fear memory unstable okay very good we go to the other side of the room such that if we give propanolol after the exposure to
• 33:30 - 34:00 the tarantula the drug can interfere with the rehabilitation of the original fear memories propanolol is a blood-pressure medication that blocks the release of noradrenaline in the amygdala the fear center of the brain since noradrenaline is part of the brain's anxiety signal during a fearful event blocking it after recall seems to disrupt the reconsolidation of the fear part of the memory but it's very
• 34:00 - 34:30 important is that it is not a forget Bill if we do not trigger the memory reactivation and that jerk will not work the next day Jaron returns what we are going to do is again walking to the other side of the room and I'm going to ask you again to touch the spider when
• 34:30 - 35:00 you can touch it here at the backside very good the chip that's it yeah did you feel it yeah okay try it again hmm it felt like rubber yeah try it again okay it takes a few
• 35:00 - 35:30 tries but after just minutes do it again very good yes yes yes how does it feel if you'd faster tarantula well like touching a hamster maybe you like
• 35:30 - 36:00 so far Ken's repeated this work in over 30 people with spider phobia and other anxiety disorders and the effects were so overwhelming that's a I did not believe them initially but in fact the therapy worked in every spider phobes did even a year later it was unbelievable and I was standing there like how can this be possible it's my new friend it's really confusing it's
• 36:00 - 36:30 like contradiction yeah how are used to feel ya know I feel now it's so strange yeah like I'm someone else no no we of course cannot prove that we delete or even erase the original fear memory because we can only observe the new behavior given that the fear does not come back we have put aside that the previously for memory are in fact yeah
• 36:30 - 37:00 deleted treating people with spider phobia is only the first step Kent is now among a handful of scientists using reconsolidation to treat a variety of disorders from drug addiction to PTSD and though the research is in its infancy early results have been promising I am very hopeful that the reconsolidation intervention will be further developed for people with
• 37:00 - 37:30 post-traumatic stress disorder but reconsolidation is more than just a therapeutic tool if the act of recalling a memory makes it vulnerable to change this may also explain something we've known all along that our memory is often an unreliable narrator I could swear by it and would pass every lie-detector test that I have mother Teresa but I haven't something that I wanted to happen but it never did
• 37:30 - 38:00 happen I believed that my earliest memory was a very happy memory of going to a movie called the greatest show on earth and it wasn't until much later I found out that the the movie was released when I was 8 years old so it couldn't have been my earliest memory this comes as no surprise to elizabeth loftis she spent the last 40 years exploring exactly how unreliable our
• 38:00 - 38:30 memory is I think people ought to pay more attention to the fact that their their memory errors all around them her work has inspired a generation of researchers including psychologist Julia Shaw the question isn't do we have false memories its how false are our memories there's so many things that can and do go wrong along the way to find out how wrong Shaw has designed perhaps the most comprehensive study ever on false memory
• 38:30 - 39:00 she starts by recruiting over a hundred people for what they think is a study about their childhood memories so this is my first meeting with the participant actually the study is to see if it's possible to implant a false memory about committing a crime I had colleagues saying this isn't gonna work there's no way you will get individuals to think that they committed a crime that never happened she begins
• 39:00 - 39:30 with a true event gathered from their parents in this case a family move but this was just a trick to gain trust the next step is to introduce the false memory a fight so severe that the police were called only two of the details are
• 39:30 - 40:00 real the name of the best friend and the place she lived at the time the rest is made up why would you really I don't I don't like I don't know what you're talking about I feel like I don't think I've ever been in a fight Shaw then turns to a series of cognitive techniques known to induce false memories starting with an imagination exercise relax close your
• 40:00 - 40:30 eyes and focus your attention on trying to ensure this all right bolstered with a little social pressure it's strange but it does work for most people subtly introducing this notion that it works for most people if they try hard enough which is a subtle form of social manipulation and ask the participant to visualize certain details of the stories introducing things that are easy to picture first picture yourself at the age of 14 picture yourself at the age of
• 40:30 - 41:00 14 that's that's an easy thing to picture in Kelowna in Kelowna the place that she lives that that she lived at the age also easy to picture and it's its fault everybody can picture fall and you are with Ryan what it happened when people imagine events that might have occurred in their past we know that that's a potent way of creating false memory after giving the memory a week to set she brings the participant back and so by the time we
• 41:00 - 41:30 get to interview number two we're seeing a different story like a verbal fight and maybe I seems so unlike but maybe I pushed something good okay so this is where she's first fully buying into this idea that she's actually had a fight I feel like she pushed me first okay and
• 41:30 - 42:00 this person is starting to picture how it could have happened and what could have been turns into what would have been turns into what was so by the third interview the memory has taken hold I think the car showed up and we were kind of having a maybe of like a vertical gonna fight and then it kind of maybe got to a push mm-hmm and it wasn't just this once Shaw was able to convince over 70% of
• 42:00 - 42:30 participants that they committed a crime I was incredibly surprised at the rates that I had in terms of successfully implanting these false memories and yet there we were and it just kept coming and coming and coming so much so Shaw's team cut the study short and the
• 42:30 - 43:00 ramifications go way beyond fooling college students false memory studies like this question one of the cornerstones of the criminal justice system in those hundreds of cases where DNA testing has proven that these individuals were wrongly convicted about three-quarters of the time the convictions were based on faulty eyewitness testimony so if our memories are more malleable
• 43:00 - 43:30 than we think and we can change them even erase some of them what's next will there ever be a day when adjust the push of a button we can implant or edit specific memories at Will's first trip like in the movies the seed that we plant in this man's mind will grow into an idea this idea will define him it may come to change it may come to change
• 43:30 - 44:00 everything about it movie is like Inception Total Recall eternal sunshine of course they're possible if mice had Hollywood then it's possible in practice right now in fact here at Columbia University Christine Denny is one of a handful of neuroscientists who can do just that it does seem like a science fiction but we are really doing inception in our lab with turning on and off memories it's called optogenetics a technique so
• 44:00 - 44:30 revolutionary it allows us not only to map a specific memory but manipulate it with lasers at least in these little guys these mice might not look so special you could not how my mice apart from a mouse on the street or wherever you'd go to a pet store and buy the mouse they don't look any different but they are these are genetically modified mice that allowed any to record specific
• 44:30 - 45:00 memories and turn them on and off at will to demonstrate she starts by putting a mouse in a new environment you can see that the mouse is just sitting here in the corner freezing [Music] basically scared of the environment that's because it's bright there's no place to hide but the goal isn't to frighten mice she wants to see if she can override this fear by playing back a happy memory she recorded yesterday what
• 45:00 - 45:30 we did is labeled a positive memory in the brains of these mice yesterday this same Mouse got to explore the kind of place it naturally likes dimly lit full of soft bedding with a nice place to hide and while he was scurrying around denny recorded the exact neurons that fired when he made a memory of that pleasant place the cells that are labeled here in green when I turn on the
• 45:30 - 46:00 laser those cells will turn on the memory but how how do you record a specific memory and how do you get brain cells to respond to light here's where the sci-fi wizardry comes in we genetically engineered mice so that we can permanently label an individual memory the key is this Mouse's special genome it's bred to carry a piece of DNA from algae that has the code for a
• 46:00 - 46:30 light-sensitive protein in nature that protein allows the algae to respond to light in denny's mice it just sits there quietly in the mouse's genome not doing anything until when you inject a drug right before you expose them to this positive experience the drug switches that gene on telling any brain cells that fire within the hour to install this light-sensitive protein on their surfaces
• 46:30 - 47:00 as the mouse is exploring a pleasant environment any neurons that fire will leave a footprint of the memory in the mouse's brain after the drug wears off only those cells will respond to light meaning it's basically like a switch so what you can then do is use a laser to control these cells these tiny fiber optics can shine light directly into the mouse's brain what we're gonna try to do
• 47:00 - 47:30 now is to turn on these cells that we've labeled with a positive memory right now the mouse is scared but if Denny is right the laser should activate the exact same neurons that fired when the mouse was making a happy memory effectively causing it to relive that positive experience okay so watch now what happens when I'm gonna turn this laser on [Music]
• 47:30 - 48:00 you can see that the animals actually smelling grooming himself which is a sign that he feels safe but turn the laser off and you can see that the animal is resuming its behavior of freezing in the corner Denny can now trigger this memory at will on/off I think the first time we did it we
• 48:00 - 48:30 didn't believe it but when you see inside of the brains of these mice and then to think that you're only manipulating those cells and changing the behavioral output of the animal that's yeah science fiction this is potentially one of the most important new developments in memory research because it suggests a level and precision of control over memory that we've really never seen before a degree of precision many scientists think we might have over our memory someday I
• 48:30 - 49:00 think that it's a matter of when this happens not a matter of if it'll happen in people which raises the question if by a flick of a switch we could edit that first kiss or erase that argument with a spouse would we want to what science is now starting to realize is that we can modify memories in some remarkable ways how do we think about that by starting to manipulate those
• 49:00 - 49:30 memories are we suggesting that evolution got it wrong could it be possible that our memories are built the way they are for a reason why would we be constructed with a memory system that is so potentially open to suggestion and change perhaps Jake the 11-year old boy with the amazing memory can help answer that question one day after months of scans
• 49:30 - 50:00 scientists are still searching for something to explain his extraordinary ability but even if they don't find anything that's an important clue Jake's already telling us something about our memories namely that the human brain has the capability to remember your entire life in great detail that's a fascinating question of why don't we consider Jake though he and other H
• 50:00 - 50:30 Samms love having their special memories even at his young age he is aware that it comes at a price just like to everything there's no upside and there's a downside the downside is you can remember every bad thing that happens you they live in different worlds and then the worlds that you and I live in and you have to wonder would you like to live in that world a world where you can't forget forgetting is probably one of the most important things that brains will do
• 50:30 - 51:00 perhaps evolution was smart enough to design a system that stores moon lead stuff that's important could it be that what we think of as memories flaws are actually part of its strength maybe we have a misconception of what the purpose of memory ISM that we think of it more as an accurate recording of past experiences as opposed to a creative process of combining our
• 51:00 - 51:30 experiences over time perhaps the ultimate goal of memory is not to retain every single fact that you've learned if you had just this picture-perfect back catalogue of 30 40 50 60 years of experience imagine how hard it would be to pick out the individual specific experiences that you need at any one moment against the backdrop of that sea of noise
• 51:30 - 52:00 somehow this complex choreography of single cells adds up to our memory a mysterious system that allows us to time travel to the past and imagine our future but perhaps memories ultimate gift is a way to navigate that sea of noise so we can pick out the experiences that each of us weave together to tell the story of our lives [Music]
• 52:00 - 52:30 [Music] this nova program is available on DVD to order visit shoppbs.org were called 1-800 play VBS Nova is also available
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