15 ms·
Memories are not only in the brain, human cell study finds
- neom 2y agoThe Body Keeps the Score is a brilliant but difficult read. Do recommend it. https://books.google.ca/books/about/The_Body_Keeps_the_Score.html?id=NKOOEAAAQBAJ https://books.google.ca/books/about/The_Body_Keeps_the_Score...
- wslh 2y agoThank you for the reference, I think it contributes to add the overview: Trauma is a fact of life. Veterans and their families deal with the painful aftermath of combat; one in five Americans has been molested; one in four grew up with alcoholics; one in three couples have engaged in physical violence. Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, one of the world’s foremost experts on trauma, has spent over three decades working with survivors. In The Body Keeps the Score, he uses recent scientific advances to show how trauma literally reshapes both body and brain, compromising sufferers’ capacities for pleasure, engagement, self-control, and trust. He explores innovative treatments—from neurofeedback and meditation to sports, drama, and yoga—that offer new paths to recovery by activating the brain’s natural neuroplasticity. Based on Dr. van der Kolk’s own research and that of other leading specialists, The Body Keeps the Score exposes the tremendous power of our relationships both to hurt and to heal—and offers new hope for reclaiming lives.
- Jerrrrrrry 2y agoThank you, this made a difference (and thanks noem for the book recc)
- copperx 2y agoThanks. Does it require to know basic neurology? Or medicine? Why is it a difficult read?
- neom 2y agoemotionally difficult, he goes deeply into peoples trauma, so it gets into some extremely "triggering" areas, not much phases me but that book wasn't a super easy from a holding back tears perspective.
- temp0826 2y agoThis came to mind when I saw the post. I work at an ayahuasca retreat center and these types of things are front and center here. Physical wounds can and do heal, but traumas ("energetic"/psychological wounds) remain fresh as the day they happened and influence us in immeasurable ways. The effects of ayahuasca often put a spotlight on them and it can be a rough ride until they are fully processed.
- Cantinflas 2y agoImo treating traumas with ayahuasca is like treating flu with a baseball bat.
- PittleyDunkin 2y agoI think the analogy here would be diagnosis (beyond western-defined ontologies) rather than treatment. Treatment comes later.
- temp0826 2y agoIt's a different school of thought for sure. We find traditional therapy to be very synergistic with it. Sometimes one can cognitively know how to fix something, but despite that it still sticks in the body. Ayahuasca can help to "percolate" that knowing into the body/nervous system for great results.
- sirsinsalot 2y agoCite your sources. Just because something feels true doesn't make it so.
- literalAardvark 2y agoConversely, a good deal of real human knowledge isn't in studies yet.
- jraph 2y ago
- mettamage 2y agoBut isn't it because in reality, the limbic system keeps the score? Example [1]. I also think he mentioned it himself. [1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8418154/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8418154/
- bob_theslob646 2y agoThis book is extremely controversial https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/11/12/book-review-the-body-keeps-the-score/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/11/12/book-review-the-body-k... >As various approaches that can help people with PTSD are suggested by the author, the book would be more comprehensive if further empirical findings are provided to demonstrate their effectiveness and how readers can integrate them into practice https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8418154/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8418154/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ptsd/comments/plskph/warning_the_body_keeps_the_score_is_a/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ptsd/comments/plskph/warning_the_bo... https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2023/08/02/body-keeps-score-grieving-brain-bessel-van-der-kolk-neuroscience-self-help/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2023/08/02/body-keeps-s... https://bigthink.com/neuropsych/body-keeps-score-trauma/ https://bigthink.com/neuropsych/body-keeps-score-trauma/ https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/03/the-case-against-the-trauma-plot https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/03/the-case-again... https://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/analysis-of-the-body-keeps-score.1482395/ https://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/analysis-of-the-bod... A Critical Evaluation of Bessel van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score By Francine Tan
- neom 2y agoI clicked the top link (nlm) and the bottom link (some forum) - the top link is a a pretty positive review, and the bottom link is incomprehensible, and the second link is... reddit...? controversial.
- bob_theslob646 2y agotop link >this is a very pre-replication crisis book. I don’t hold this against the author, I don’t think anyone’s really proud of what they believed pre-replication crisis, but it’s undoubtedly a product of its time. Mirror neurons, candidate genes, left- vs right-brained people, etc all make dramatic appearances. Nothing (except the genetics parts) are inexcusable or even certainly wrong, but all of them together concern me. And several of the book’s key studies are contradicted by later, larger studies. Van der Kolk talks about how childhood trauma decreases IQ, but some pretty good studies say it doesn’t. Even the studies that have passed the test of time look a little weird. The Adverse Childhood Experiences study found that obesity and other seemingly nonpsychiatric diseases were linked to child abuse, and recent studies confirm this – but the controls for socioeconomic status are always insufficient, and there’s surprisingly little shared environmental component. I’m biased about this, everyone’s biased, but part of the book was meant to prove that child abuse mattered shockingly more than you thought it possibly could, and that part was wasted on me.
- the__alchemist 2y agoI'm having a hard time garnering a mechanism from the article, but I think DNA methylation is a good candidate.
- whoisjuan 2y agoThis is wild, but many studies have reached the same conclusion. I remember reading somewhere that heart transplant recipients have random memory flashes that are not their memories, and sometimes they develop new personality traits.
- hank808 2y agoThat sounds really interesting! Can you cite any articles or anything?
- whoisjuan 2y agohttps://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38694651/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38694651/
- kadoban 2y ago> I remember reading somewhere that heart transplant recipients have random memory flashes that are not their memories, and sometimes they develop new personality traits. Wild. Doesn't necessarily surprise me too much that the body stores some memories outside the brain, but it seems _very_ surprising that another body/brain can read and understand ones created by another. I'd assume that the whole mind and memory system is one big correlated mess, not essentially composed of data files in a ~standard encoding.
- kibwen 2y agoIt would be hasty to assume that any memories would be transferable in such a way. If your hypothesis is that transplant recipients can have their memories altered by interpreting information carried by foreign organ cells, start by assuming they're reading junk data that they cannot decipher. Brains are great at turning junk data into something that feels real.
- kadoban 2y agoThat was my followup question, are the memories accurate (even as much as normal memories are), or are they nonsense? Or even better, it'd be fun if they're not completely nonsense, but corrupted in some understandable way (like people/places are substituted for instance). There's no way at all that memories are encoded as essentially mpeg files, so _something_ has to be wrong with them. But yeah, you're right, odds seem good that they're just nonsense, but even then it just feels weird that the body can even interpret them as memories in the slightest.
- RaftPeople 2y agoThis seems to make sense given that Purkinje cells in the brain have been shown to do this same type of thing in isolation (detect and respond to patterns of input). It meant there was some low level mechanism lurking inside at least those cells, so not too surprising it's more general.
- htk 2y agoOf course cells and tissues react to external stimuli, that's part of the homeostasis process, and a fundamental part of our adaptivity or we'd die with minimal changes in the environment. Calling it memory is the same as saying a bruise is my body having a memory of me hitting the corner of the table. Well toned bodies are the memories of the weight lifting exercises they've performed in the past, and so on. But I can only imagine the extrapolations that alternative medicine people will make with this.
- jb1991 2y agoThe odd conclusions you draw are not what is explained in this article.
- aszantu 2y agothere's an interesting trauma release meditation where your limbs are asked to remember things. It's pretty interesting what comes up, then you're asked to let it go and when you do, some weird extra deep relaxation sets in
- PittleyDunkin 2y agoMemories seem in this context to mean state that isn't immediately physiologically apparent. But yes, I think your definition is reasonable too, if not very useful for communication.
- neom 2y agoI read the paper and I didn't think that is what they're talking about. The molecular systems for temporal pattern detection where previously thought to be specialized to neurons, but this article indicates that they exists in other cell types. Bruising is a response to physical trauma, lacking any temporal pattern sensitivity? Molecular mechanism related to learning and memory formation, ERK and CREB signaling are known to be crucial for memory formation in neurons. I think what the paper is showing that this specific molecular machinery for detecting and responding to temporal patterns isn't unique to neurons https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-53922-x https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-53922-x
- grugagag 2y agoIs muscle memory real then?
- iefbr14 2y agoThat was my conclusion too after reading it. I was always wondering how the brain could send all needed info to the muscles fast enough when someone is playing piano or typing 120 characters a minute.
- danhau 2y agoI would have assumed it did by anticipating. Musicians reading sheet music tend to read ahead, but that could be something else entirely.
- tetha 2y agoMh, I'm neither a Neurologist, nor any level of good at being a musician. But it goes further than that. Now after a few years, I start to recognize patterns in songs and this removes a huge amount of cognitive overhead. For example, there are very classical rhythms in rock and metal. These were very intimidating two or three years ago, because it's so many notes to look at and a lot of them fast and it's just a lot of stuff to look at. Now, on a guitar, I just recognize 18 bars of gallop-rhythm on string two and my right hand just does that, at least at the speeds I can do. Or you can recognize how a song is in a certain key and my left hand is just used to what happens in such keys. Sure, you need to learn the notes, but the physical motions are largely set already. Similar things on a keyboard. In complex sections, a lot of thought can go into hand position and which finger to use to press a key, because you may need to prepare movement of your hand a few notes early or you can't hit a certain transition. I've noticed that something other than conscious thought optimizes that as well. My biggest takeaway is that music is hard, and the human kinematic system is entirely amazing.
- Nevermark 2y agoMuscles and nerves adapt to physical challenges to make higher intensity efforts easier in three ways: better effort coordination, higher demand signaling, and higher force produced by muscle fibers. (We tend to think of just the latter, but all three significantly impact “strength”.) Each of these has mechanisms of maintenance and faster recovery after use lapses. Which can all be described as memory. First, the spinal cord and motor cortex learn more effective coordination. Proper coordination of muscles impacts strength by ensuring our different muscles cooperate effectively to apply force where we need it. We imagine simple movements as simple efforts, but they are really a series of coordinated multiple muscle response. This can be considered “normal” neural/cognitive learning and memory in the brain, spinal coord and nervous system. Second, our nervous system learns to send higher intensity demand signals to the muscles. I don’t know what the mechanism is here. Maybe higher coordination of simultaneous signals within the muscle? Maybe an increase in signal strengths? An increase in nerve cells? A combination? In any case, once learned, this learning is mostly maintained despite loss of stimulus and relearned quickly. This creates a common source of injury. After a workout hiatus, our ability to demand intense muscle response can exceed the abilities of our reduced muscle’s capabilities. It can feel too easy to push our bodies hard again, resulting in injuries that abort the attempt to restart training. Restart weight lifting programs with patience and caution, until muscles catch up with the renewed overload, hypertrophy and recovery cycle. The third very long term memory mechanism in muscle cells is quite interesting: myonuclear accretion. Support cells merge with muscle cells permanently giving them multiple nuclei, permanently increasing their ability and speed to create the proteins we need for hypertrophy (muscle growth) and recovery (repair and energy store recuperation). Myonuclear accretion allows muscle cells to grow far beyond their original limits. And accounts for why previously trained muscles can retain a modestly higher level of strength and size, even after training regimen lapses. All three memory mechanisms account for why regaining previous high levels of strength happens faster, with less effort, than it took to gain any level of strength the first time. Aother memory mechanism include higher interoception, prioperception, kinematics, and higher level learning regarding exercise form, workout discipline, workout organization, body limitations, injury warnings, positive associations with making effort, etc. that are all result in long term increased strength and ability recover and accumulate it.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- soared 2y agoIt does not seem like the article supports the title. The study seems more focused on spaced repetition?
- neom 2y agoThe research goes beyond observing spaced repetition it shows that essential features of memory formation like encoding and retention of temporal patterns occur outside the nervous system.
- ants_everywhere 2y agoThis study is specifically about "learning" that takes place without interacting with the brain. It's learning in the same sense the immune system learns to fight of infections. The difference is that the mechanism by which cells record state is similar to one of the mechanisms also used by the brain at the cellular level, which you would expect. The cells and structures that make up the brain evolved from simpler structures, so we would expect some reuse of mechanism.
- lupire 2y agoThe obvious-in-retrospect distinction is that memory is everywhere (even a footprintnin dirt is a memory), and selective (reinforced) memory is more complex (as in the OP example), and the combination and communication of memories and information is where the brain really outshines other objects.
- Jerrrrrrry 2y agoUsing the immune system as an analogy as another complexity layer of adversarial <-> learning/adaptation in relation to the context of both complexity theory / machine learning is tempting but almost is too easy. Plus the immune system is likely more complex than the analogy would hold up to.
- akira2501 2y agoThe immune system is several systems. One of my favorite parts is the Thymus. It's literally setup like a gauntlet. New immune cells from marrow come through the Thymus and are tested. They need to pass through and attack foreign cells then pass through and _not_ attack host cells. They are essentially tagged and filtered by this process. Most cells are let go into the body, some cells are reserved as self regulatory cells, and the others that do not pass are destroyed. It's a literal quality control and selection machine for your immune system.
- cantrevealname 2y agoThis brings up the question about whether there are hereditary information transmission methods other than DNA. There are so many things we ascribe to “instinct” that might be information transmitted from parent to offspring in some encoded format. Like songs that newborn songbirds know, migration routes that animals know without being shown, that a mother dog should break the amniotic sac to release the puppies inside, what body shapes should be considered more desirable for a mate out of an infinite variety of shapes. It seems it implausible to me that all of these things can be encoded as chemical signalling; it seems to require much more complex encoding of information, pattern matching, templates, and/or memory.
- neom 2y agoYou might enjoy the research of Dr. Ian Stevenson. It's his research that got me deep down the rabbit hole on this subject many years ago. (I have 1 vivid memory that I would call a "past life memory") - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Stevenson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Stevenson
- Mistletoe 2y agoWhat’s the memory?
- gliptic 2y agoThis is paranormal reincarnation mumbo-jumbo, not inheritance.
- pigeons 2y agoHow to tell the difference from imagination?
- neom 2y agoWhen I imagine, the "videos" are devoid of emotion or feeling, unlike my memories. This specific "thing" has a strong feeling and emotion connected to it, unlike the other thinking that is very sterile, it's the only thing I carry that I know I've not experienced but it has the association of memory qualia.
- szundi 2y agoIs this epigenetics?
- readthenotes1 2y ago"massed space effect" Obfuscation of cramming vs repetition (like graduated recall interval) training https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34519968/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34519968/
- filoeleven 2y agoThis topic is related to the work of Michael Levin’s lab, which I only recently found out about and have been digging into. They’ve released a bunch of papers, and Michael has given plenty of in-depth interviews available on YouTube. They’re looking at low-level structures like cells and asking “what can be learned/achieved by viewing these structures as being intelligent agents?” The problem of memory is tied intricately with intelligence, and examples of it at these low levels are found throughout their work. The results of their experiments are surprising and intriguing: bringing cancer cells back into proper functioning, “anthrobots” self-assembling from throat tissue cells, malformed tadpoles becoming normal frogs, cells induced to make an eye by recruiting their neighbors… An excerpt from the link below: Our main model system is morphogenesis: the ability of multicellular bodies to self-assemble, repair, and improvise novel solutions to anatomical goals. We ask questions about the mechanisms required to achieve robust, multiscale, adaptive order in vivo, and about the algorithms sufficient to reproduce this capacity in other substrates. One of our unique specialties is the study of developmental bioelectricity: ways in which all cells connect in somatic electrical networks that store, process, and act on information to control large-scale body structure. Our lab creates and employs tools to read and edit the bioelectric code that guides the proto-cognitive computations of the body, much as neuroscientists are learning to read and write the mental content of the brain. https://drmichaellevin.org/ https://drmichaellevin.org/
- agumonkey 2y agoAs a sidenote, Peter Reddien's lab did other studies on planaria (videos are on youtube) and found cells that are supposedly dedicated to map the whole body and indicate how differentiation should go in that area (basically one input to the morphogenesis of this animal). It was, after levin's work, another eye openener, as you kinda approach biology as an information problem... everything happening has a piece of data that explains it, we just didn't look everywhere.
- westurner 2y ago> developmental bioelectricity Probably already aware of methods like: - Tissue Nanotransfection : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tissue_nanotransfection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tissue_nanotransfection - "Direct neuronal reprogramming by temporal identity factors" (2023) https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2122168120#abstract https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2122168120#abstract ... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36912925 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36912925
- mmooss 2y agoHere is the paper itself: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-53922-x https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-53922-x
- jbverschoor 2y agoHaven't read it myself, but heard about it many times. "The Body Remembers" ( https://www.amazon.com/Body-Remembers-Psychophysiology-Treatment-Professional/dp/0393703274 https://www.amazon.com/Body-Remembers-Psychophysiology-Treat... )
- Vecr 2y agoPeople are saying very weird things in the comments. To the extent that epigenetics transfers at all, they can't go very far. For past-life memories, uh no. For memories in non-brain tissues, there's a major detail problem there, if any of this pans out at all. For memories transferred from another person, it makes no sense. Your nerves don't transfer universal (between human) data files around, and your brain is a tangled mess. Memories won't transfer beyond, maybe, possibly, some stuff around personality, mood, and various neurotransmitter things. And I don't think it would be common, if it happens at all, without intentional development and use of new tech. For example it should theoretically be possible to recover the basic personality of a cryogenically vitrified brain, based quite a bit on genetics and some on brain structure, but beyond that I can't say. Unless you know many things I don't, and have carefully checked that you truly know them, you should not expect memory recovery, at least above the low double digits percentage. And that's assuming "full technology", I for sure don't know to even get started.
- numewhodis 2y agoWhich is why it is important to eat right and listen to the body. Memories can be activated without awareness, anywhere in the head, modulating the deliberate cognitive processing as well as whatever happens "in the back of the head".
- transfire 2y agoWell L. Ron got that one right.
- helpfulContrib 2y ago[dead]
- nitwit005 2y agoThe headline is nonsense. That the body "remembers" things is not news. My immune system remembers the cold I got. The source study states: > Our findings show that canonical features of memory do not necessarily depend on neural circuitry, but can be embedded in the dynamics of signaling cascades conserved across different cell types.
- xyst 2y agoIn so many words, this study basically described the immune system. Similar mechanism to how immune system is able to identify foreign bodies (virus, bacteria) and issue the appropriate response. Fundamental building blocks for vaccines.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- trallnag 2y agoInteresting, reminds me of this article "Previous sexual partners affect offspring": https://time.com/3461485/how-previous-sexual-partners-affect-offspring/ https://time.com/3461485/how-previous-sexual-partners-affect... For example, if a female first has sex with very large virile males and absorbs their sperm packages and then gets fertilized by a tiny frail male, the offspring's size is on the larger side, determined by the previous sexual encounters. Not sure if there has been any followup on this research. https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.12373 https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.12373
- magneticnorth 2y agoNote: This study was on a particular species of fly. I think that's an important detail left out of the one-sentence summary.
- trallnag 2y agoDeliberately left out to get the reader's noggin joggin'
- mettamage 2y agoMitochondria are alive (also on the front page), memories are not only in the brain What's next? Exciting titles, I wonder what's behind them.
- rolph 2y agokeep flogging dead paradigms, and you eventually get to a level of resolution that demands new ones
- bookstore-romeo 2y agoPast conversation [0] on a SciAm article about basal cognition. I highly recommend the article [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39127028 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39127028
- alyx 2y agoThe physical body is what the mental state (ex, memories) "looks like" from a third person perspective.
- dabinat 2y agoI had a 6-hour surgery a few years ago, for which I was unconscious. When I awoke, my butt hurt (that’s not where the surgery was) such that it was difficult to sit on hard chairs for 3 or 4 days. It was explained to me that although I was unconscious, my body still knew what was going on and was tensing up during the surgery. I thought it was interesting that my body had trauma from an event that my brain couldn’t remember.
- pvaldes 2y agoThe article does not talk about what most people would call memory, really. Is also written in an obfuscated way, that is often a red flag. Some of the phrases seem more created by AI than for humans.
- chapulin 2y agoThe Embodied Mind by Thomas Verny is another great read on this theme. It's about cellular memory/cognition.
- 66yatman 2y agoIf you cut off your legs will you forget part of your life?