In this study, the scientists simulated the process of spaced learning by examining two types of non-brain human cells — one from nerve tissue and one from kidney tissue — in a laboratory setting.

These cells were exposed to varying patterns of chemical signals, akin to the exposure of brain cells to neurotransmitter patterns when we learn new information.

The intriguing part? These non-brain cells also switched on a “memory gene” – the same gene that brain cells activate when they detect information patterns and reorganize their connections to form memories.

  • Adderbox76@lemmy.ca
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    32 minutes ago

    Not to be a debbie downer here, but it’s important to keep in mind that unless expressly stated otherwise, so-called discoveries that are only published in out-of-the-way (ie. not respected scientific journals) have usually not been peer reviewed or had their results replicated, which is the entire point of the scientific method.

  • HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com
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    5 hours ago

    Its not the same memory as your brain. your life story is not in your non nerve cells. they have memory the same as yeast has memory but everyone is aware of how we have muscle memory in reptitive tasks.

    • Xeroxchasechase@lemmy.world
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      4 hours ago

      I think muscle memory is just a phrase, but the training that makes and embed the “muscle memory” is essentially nural

      • HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com
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        3 hours ago

        yeah sorry I still feel that is neural just not all the way to the brain. I guess what I was trying to say if the article is not that cells hold your memory but that they hold their type of memories is a similar way.

      • bizarroland@fedia.io
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        4 hours ago

        Okay but what you’re saying is if I hired a good enough marksman to shoot the cancer out of my body without killing me then that’s a good thing right?

        I mean, that’s basically what we do with gamma radiation and chemotherapy, just a little bit more ballistic, right?

    • Septimaeus@infosec.pub
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      6 hours ago

      Yes, insofar as many reflexive actions, enervation and fiber recruitment thresholds respond to training, such that they “remember“ actions you have performed many times before. There are many clusters of nerves throughout the body called ganglia that are responsible for low-latency control of various functions that would entail too much delay when controlled entirely by the brain.

      Generally, the minimum input-process-activation turnaround time of the brain is about 4 hz (240-250 ms) which is too slow for many applications of motor function. But the “co-processing” allowed by the extended nervous system enables the body to, with practice, execute far more rapid and complex action sequences in response to local stimuli. Some actions can be triggered and completed before a signal even makes it to the brain.

      • Optional@lemmy.world
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        6 hours ago

        Generally, the minimum input-process-activation turnaround time of the brain is about 4 hz (240-250 ms) which is too slow for many motor functions. But the “co-processing” allowed by the extended nervous system enables the body to, with practice, execute far more rapid and complex action sequences in response to local stimuli. Some actions can even be triggered and completed before a signal makes it to the brain.

        Thank you. For some reason it makes me happy to know that.

  • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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    6 hours ago

    Read something like that in an old science fiction novel.

    Old man’s brain is placed in a young woman’s body. Her brain was destroyed but most of her memories live on in her body.

    • bizarroland@fedia.io
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      4 hours ago

      Reminds me of the guy that got a heart transplant and took up smoking like the original owner of the heart and started dating the original owners ex.

    • VubDapple@lemmy.world
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      5 hours ago

      Robert Heinlein, I Will Fear No Evil

      “Elderly billionaire Johann Sebastian Bach Smith is being kept alive through medical support and decides to have his brain transplanted into a new body. He advertises an offer of a million dollars for the donation of a body from a brain-dead patient. Smith omits to place any restriction on the sex of the donor, so when his beautiful young female secretary, Eunice Branca, is killed, her body is used—without his knowledge and to the distress of some of those around him.”

    • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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      6 hours ago

      I’d read that novel.

      Old man hell bent on world domination, but really wants Johnny in math class to ask him to the dance on Friday.

    • herrvogel@lemmy.world
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      6 hours ago

      One of Iain M. Banks’ Culture novels has an exceptionally old character who is so exceptionally old that he’s had to turn most of his body into memory storage (sounds weird if you think in terms of computers) to keep remembering things. He stores his sexy memories in his balls.

  • Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    7 hours ago

    It seem like they’re just saying kidneys remember kidney stuff, pancreases just remember pancreas stuff, etc etc.

    It’s not like your kidney remembers Aunt Jean has a mole on her nose.

    • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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      6 hours ago

      There is another body of research that deals with a person’s behavior can be heavily influence by endocrine actions. Organs can affect current endocrine responses. So there is a suggestion here that your kidney may not remember the Aunt Jean has a mole, it may remember why it releases certain hormones which can effect how you behave.

  • baldturkeyleg@lemmy.world
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    7 hours ago

    So hold on a minute - does this mean there might be some truth to the whole “eat your fallen enemy to gain experience” thing? That’s wild.

    • originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com
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      7 hours ago

      naw. its more like the nerve pathways through the body also have their own node-weighting long before they get to the brain. those are used in process sometimes allowing for memory-like function

      its still a generated system that you cant just eat

    • jmiller@lemm.ee
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      7 hours ago

      Eating a dictionary to improve your vocabulary would be equally effective to that theory, and for many of the same reasons. (As far as information transfer is concerned)

      • TʜᴇʀᴀᴘʏGⒶʀʏ@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        3 hours ago

        Wow, these examples are so cool.

        Food Preferences:

        • developed aversion to meat after receiving a heart from a vegetarian donor.
        • experienced nausea after meals post-transplant from a donor with irregular eating habits.
        • developed a taste for green peppers and chicken nuggets, foods favored by her donor.

        Musical Preferences:

        • began enjoying loud music post-transplant.
        • developed a love for music after receiving a heart from a musician.
        • started appreciating classical music, previously disliked, after transplant.

        Sexual Preferences:

        • Male recipient of a heart from a lesbian artist experienced heightened desire toward women.
        • Lesbian recipient of a heterosexual woman’s heart found attraction to men.

        Other Preferences and Aversions:

        • Landscape artist’s heart recipient developed interest in art.
        • Dancer’s heart recipient shifted color preferences to cooler tones.
        • Fear of water developed post-transplant from drowning victim.

        Memories:

        • describes sudden unusual tastes accompanied by thoughts about their donor’s identity and life experiences.
        • feels tactile sensations corresponding to the impact of the car accident that killed their donor.
        • experiencing flashes of light and heat resembling the trauma suffered by their donor, who was shot in the face.
        • describes a vivid dream of reckless driving, mirroring the circumstances of their donor’s fatal motorcycle accident.

        Some recipients even experience dreams or memories aligning with their donor’s identity, such as a woman envisioning a young man named Tim during a dream and later discovering her donor’s name as Tim Lamirande

        Unfortunately, though, I don’t see any mention of how certain they were that the recipients didn’t learn these things before experiencing them

      • oce 🐆@jlai.lu
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        7 hours ago

        I know it is a nickname, I am wondering if this could contribute.

        • Optional@lemmy.world
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          6 hours ago

          Maybe in the sense that memories are not required to be in the brain to - have an output?

  • Korkki@lemmy.world
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    7 hours ago

    As if haven’t know for a century that immune system has the ability to both form memories and problem solve, that rivals the brain. The body being able to adapt to external stimuli isn’t anything groundbreaking.