WEBVTT - From the Vault: Devourer of Memories, Part 2 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:07.640 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:07.680 --> 0:00:10.720 is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. In it's Saturday. 0:00:10.760 --> 0:00:12.680 Time to go into the vault for a classic episode 0:00:12.680 --> 0:00:16.000 of the show. Today we are airing part two of 0:00:16.079 --> 0:00:18.279 the one that came out last weekend. So this is 0:00:18.400 --> 0:00:23.400 Devour of Memories, Part two, originally published November twenty one, nineteen. 0:00:23.760 --> 0:00:26.439 It continues the story from last weekend, So we hope 0:00:26.480 --> 0:00:32.360 you enjoy. Let's dig right in. Welcome to Stuff to 0:00:32.400 --> 0:00:34.440 Blow Your Mind, a production of I Heart Radios How 0:00:34.479 --> 0:00:43.360 Stuff Work. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 0:00:43.479 --> 0:00:46.000 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And 0:00:46.000 --> 0:00:48.839 we're back with part two of our exploration of planarians, 0:00:49.320 --> 0:00:53.159 memory learning and conditioning. And of course today we're going 0:00:53.240 --> 0:00:55.400 to get to the cannibalism. That's right. If you did 0:00:55.440 --> 0:00:57.280 not listen to part one, do go back and listen 0:00:57.280 --> 0:00:59.680 to it, because we lay the groundwork. We discussed these 0:00:59.800 --> 0:01:02.960 or isms, why they're interesting. We discussed their regenerative powers. 0:01:03.400 --> 0:01:07.280 We talk about McConnell himself. We talk about his personal 0:01:07.440 --> 0:01:10.800 and professional history as well as his run in with 0:01:10.840 --> 0:01:13.759 the unit Bomber. Right, uh, So that figure, of course 0:01:13.840 --> 0:01:17.160 is James V. McConnell, the American psychologist. But if you 0:01:17.240 --> 0:01:19.440 listen to the last episode, as you should before this one, 0:01:19.480 --> 0:01:22.920 you already know that. So we're picking up after McConnell's 0:01:22.920 --> 0:01:27.720 initial research demonstrating in the nineteen fifties that despite conventional 0:01:27.760 --> 0:01:31.640 wisdom that invertebrates could not learn, could not be trained 0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:35.480 through classical conditioning or any other kind of associate of learning. Uh, 0:01:35.680 --> 0:01:38.800 McConnell and colleagues did in fact demonstrate that that's not true, 0:01:38.840 --> 0:01:43.039 at least for planarians, these flatworms, that that could be 0:01:43.120 --> 0:01:46.680 trained to react to something like a light stimulus. And 0:01:46.720 --> 0:01:49.000 we also discussed how it's just generally known to be 0:01:49.040 --> 0:01:52.040 true today that invertebrates can learn. The conventional wisdom at 0:01:52.040 --> 0:01:54.840 the time was wrong. But so to pick up with 0:01:54.920 --> 0:01:58.040 McConnell's career. After completing his graduate degree at the University 0:01:58.080 --> 0:02:02.120 of Texas, I almost said Jerry O'Connell, not Jerry O'Connell. 0:02:02.200 --> 0:02:05.520 James McConnell moved on to the University of Michigan, where 0:02:05.560 --> 0:02:08.800 he continued his research into flatworms with the team that 0:02:08.960 --> 0:02:11.800 came to be known as the Polenarian Research Group or 0:02:11.880 --> 0:02:15.919 PR g So another piece of context for this research 0:02:16.639 --> 0:02:20.680 is a sort of quest for the holy Grail within 0:02:20.760 --> 0:02:24.600 twentieth century psychology and neuroscience, and this was the hunt 0:02:24.960 --> 0:02:29.080 for the elusive ingram. It was believed by many in 0:02:29.120 --> 0:02:33.040 the mid century that a researcher, that the first researcher 0:02:33.360 --> 0:02:37.440 to actually pinpoint something known as the ingram, would receive 0:02:37.520 --> 0:02:40.920 the Nobel Prize for their work. But what was the ingram? 0:02:40.960 --> 0:02:43.880 The short version is that the ingram was believed to 0:02:43.919 --> 0:02:48.680 be the fundamental physical unit of memory represented in the body. 0:02:49.000 --> 0:02:52.200 In order for an animal to learn an association between 0:02:52.240 --> 0:02:55.520 two things, that memory has to be accompanied by some 0:02:55.720 --> 0:02:59.560 kind of physical change inside the body. But what is 0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:02.160 the fun no mimental unit of that change. Is it 0:03:02.240 --> 0:03:05.239 a structural change in the brain that can be located 0:03:05.400 --> 0:03:08.040 or is it something else? So the idea is that 0:03:08.280 --> 0:03:11.079 you would see the physical evidence of learning and then 0:03:11.080 --> 0:03:14.560 potentially like that is physical evidence that could be then manipulated. 0:03:14.680 --> 0:03:17.600 Of course, yeah, it's sort of like searching for the atom. 0:03:18.120 --> 0:03:20.880 What the atom is to matter, the ingram would be 0:03:20.960 --> 0:03:24.560 to memory. What is the fundamental unit that that physically 0:03:25.080 --> 0:03:28.160 indicates in the body a memory has been formed? And 0:03:28.200 --> 0:03:31.800 of course one motivation for studying whether simpler organisms like 0:03:31.919 --> 0:03:35.360 worms and other invertebrates could in fact learn associations through 0:03:35.400 --> 0:03:39.400 classical conditioning was that this might help move along the 0:03:39.440 --> 0:03:43.600 search for the ingram. If a biological phenomenon seems too 0:03:43.600 --> 0:03:46.680 complex to understand in one organism, you know, if you 0:03:46.720 --> 0:03:49.720 can't find it in a rabbit, everything is just too complicated. 0:03:50.120 --> 0:03:52.560 Maybe you can get a foothold to understanding by looking 0:03:52.560 --> 0:03:56.280 for analogous phenomena in simpler organisms and then build your 0:03:56.320 --> 0:03:58.480 way back up. And it's a sensible way to go 0:03:58.520 --> 0:04:01.400 about it, of course. Uh So research in the middle 0:04:01.400 --> 0:04:04.240 of the twentieth century tried to locate the ingram two 0:04:04.360 --> 0:04:07.760 changes in a specific part of the brain and a rat, 0:04:07.960 --> 0:04:11.960 but these efforts failed. In fact, rat brain memory research 0:04:12.000 --> 0:04:15.520 he demonstrated that there was no one location or structure 0:04:15.880 --> 0:04:18.919 in which the fundamental unit of memory association was to 0:04:18.920 --> 0:04:22.839 be found. Instead, learning seemed to involve wide swaths of 0:04:22.880 --> 0:04:26.600 the rat cortex, and today we know that certain regions 0:04:26.600 --> 0:04:29.520 of the brain are especially important for memories. For example, 0:04:29.920 --> 0:04:33.760 fear based conditioning, like if you condition somebody to respond 0:04:33.800 --> 0:04:36.560 to a stimulus through conditioning due to an electric shock, 0:04:37.000 --> 0:04:40.560 that this seems to strongly implicate the amygdala, not just 0:04:40.600 --> 0:04:43.159 fear actually, but other types of emotional memory as well. 0:04:43.200 --> 0:04:47.239 I think while memory of spatial locations and physical maps 0:04:47.520 --> 0:04:52.080 seems especially to implicate the hippocampus, But memories for complex 0:04:52.080 --> 0:04:55.279 actions maybe finding your way around a maze, as was 0:04:55.320 --> 0:04:59.120 often tried with rats, will involve lots of different parts 0:04:59.160 --> 0:05:01.279 of the brain at so you can't point to the 0:05:01.320 --> 0:05:04.680 memory in one specific part of the brain. It's using 0:05:04.720 --> 0:05:08.160 the whole brain basically. In the nineteen fifties, this wasn't 0:05:08.240 --> 0:05:11.680 yet clear. It was It was just clear that memory, 0:05:11.720 --> 0:05:16.000 contrary to the expectations of many psychologists, couldn't be located 0:05:16.040 --> 0:05:19.640 in one particular structure or single point physical change in 0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:23.400 the brain. And because of the failure of researchers to 0:05:23.480 --> 0:05:26.920 locate a structural ingram at a single point in the brain, 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:31.200 some researchers began to turn to other explanations, and McConnell 0:05:31.279 --> 0:05:35.240 was one of them. McConnell wondered, what if memories were 0:05:35.320 --> 0:05:39.920 not stored exclusively in structures in the brain. Could you 0:05:39.960 --> 0:05:43.840 have memories in your hands, in your blood, in your guts. 0:05:44.440 --> 0:05:48.359 Was there a deeper chemical rather than structural basis for 0:05:48.480 --> 0:05:52.480 our memories. And here's where the planarians again become an 0:05:52.480 --> 0:05:57.000 invaluable research tool in looking into could you have memories 0:05:57.000 --> 0:05:59.240 outside the brain? Could there be such a thing as 0:05:59.240 --> 0:06:04.120 a memory chemical or a memory molecule found throughout the body. 0:06:04.279 --> 0:06:07.120 And yeah, this we come back to the regenerative powers 0:06:07.160 --> 0:06:10.880 of the planarian. We described this in the first episode 0:06:10.880 --> 0:06:14.520 as being something like The Sorcerer's Apprentice, the old Disney 0:06:14.560 --> 0:06:18.279 animation from Fantasia, in which the uh what what is it? 0:06:18.279 --> 0:06:20.200 It's a broom that is brought to life to do 0:06:20.240 --> 0:06:23.159 a particular task to carry water from a well, I think, 0:06:23.240 --> 0:06:25.400 and then yeah, it was it's a well. And then 0:06:25.640 --> 0:06:28.800 and then Nikki, the Sorcerer's Apprentice in this case, ends 0:06:28.880 --> 0:06:32.160 up having to to destroy it. So he chops in 0:06:32.160 --> 0:06:35.080 into a million pieces with his axe, and then all 0:06:35.200 --> 0:06:38.080 those millions of pieces, each little sliver of the broom 0:06:38.080 --> 0:06:41.919 comes back to life and grows into a whole new, fresh, 0:06:42.440 --> 0:06:46.000 uh broom with that walks around on two legs and 0:06:46.040 --> 0:06:48.680 carries buckets of water. Right, And this connects to the 0:06:48.720 --> 0:06:51.760 regenerative powers of planaria, because if you cut a planarian 0:06:51.720 --> 0:06:54.320 in half, one of these flatworms just chop it in 0:06:54.400 --> 0:06:58.159 half crosswise, separating the head from the tail. Each half 0:06:58.200 --> 0:07:01.440 of the worm would grow the part it lost, So 0:07:01.600 --> 0:07:06.120 the decapitated head could regrow a tail, and the decapitated 0:07:06.200 --> 0:07:11.160 tail could regrow ahead, which means regrowing a brain. So 0:07:11.280 --> 0:07:14.840 McConnell's question was, if I condition a flat worm to 0:07:15.200 --> 0:07:18.280 learn something, maybe have a response to a stimulus like 0:07:18.320 --> 0:07:21.080 a flashing light, and then I cut it in half, 0:07:21.520 --> 0:07:25.280 which half of the worm will retain the response if 0:07:25.320 --> 0:07:28.000 either Now you might think the answer is obvious, right, Well, 0:07:28.000 --> 0:07:30.720 obviously the head half is where the brain is, so 0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:34.080 the head half will retain the conditioning if either side does, 0:07:34.320 --> 0:07:36.280 and the tail half won't. Right that that seems like 0:07:36.280 --> 0:07:39.200 the obvious conclusion, right, Yeah, that's what you would assume. 0:07:39.240 --> 0:07:42.160 That's what like a basic understanding of monster movies would 0:07:42.160 --> 0:07:45.760 have you assumed. Yes, McConnell found this was not exactly 0:07:45.800 --> 0:07:49.920 true in his experiments on freshwater flat worms called dogs 0:07:50.040 --> 0:07:53.920 a Dorado cephala. If you classically condition the worm to 0:07:54.000 --> 0:07:56.520 respond to a light and then you cut the flat 0:07:56.560 --> 0:08:00.360 worm into two halves, both halves retained the condition ng, 0:08:00.720 --> 0:08:03.280 and in a few cases the tail retained the conditioning 0:08:03.360 --> 0:08:06.080 more strongly than the head. So you could cut the 0:08:06.160 --> 0:08:09.560 head off, the tail would regrow ahead, and it would 0:08:09.640 --> 0:08:13.400 still respond like the way it had learned to respond 0:08:13.600 --> 0:08:16.720 when it had its original head. So if all the 0:08:16.800 --> 0:08:20.200 learning was in the brain, how could that be possible? Right? 0:08:20.240 --> 0:08:22.640 This would seem to indicate that there's some sort of 0:08:22.880 --> 0:08:27.960 memory retention or memory storage going on within the body itself. Right, 0:08:28.200 --> 0:08:30.560 And these results were eventually published in the Journal of 0:08:30.600 --> 0:08:35.079 Comparative and Physiological Psychology. But then it gets even weirder 0:08:35.120 --> 0:08:39.040 because we're going to start playing flat worm Ship of Theseus? 0:08:39.160 --> 0:08:42.680 Uh So a refresher on the Ship of Theseus thought experiment, Robert, 0:08:42.679 --> 0:08:44.320 do you want to do the honors here? Oh? Sure? 0:08:44.360 --> 0:08:47.120 This is the basic idea. If you you have this ship, 0:08:47.200 --> 0:08:51.160 for this legendary Ship of Theseus, you're celebrating it across 0:08:51.360 --> 0:08:54.079 the decades. Think about it. Is a ship that is 0:08:54.160 --> 0:08:56.840 docked for decades tends to fall apart piece by piece, 0:08:57.080 --> 0:09:00.320 so you replace it piece by piece. Eventually you reach 0:09:00.360 --> 0:09:03.560 the point where you have replaced every single piece of 0:09:03.600 --> 0:09:07.400 this vessel. The question is, is the Ship of Theseus 0:09:07.440 --> 0:09:11.160 any longer the Ship of Theseus? Is it? It's It's 0:09:11.160 --> 0:09:13.440 not physically the same ship it was before, but it 0:09:13.559 --> 0:09:15.760 is the same shape. It's just all the pieces have 0:09:15.800 --> 0:09:18.400 been at this point replaced. Now, what if you in 0:09:18.480 --> 0:09:22.920 fact do this with flatworms since they can regenerate, And 0:09:22.960 --> 0:09:25.920 this is exactly what they tried in a series of experiments. 0:09:26.320 --> 0:09:29.360 McConnell and the Planarian Research Group showed that if you 0:09:29.480 --> 0:09:31.800 cut a word, like, for example, you cut a flat 0:09:31.800 --> 0:09:34.920 worm's head off after it's been conditioned and trained, so 0:09:35.000 --> 0:09:39.439 it has this memory response, and then that tail regrows ahead, 0:09:39.960 --> 0:09:43.040 and then you cut the original tail off, so the 0:09:43.080 --> 0:09:47.640 regenerated head regrows a tail. Now you've got no original 0:09:47.760 --> 0:09:50.360 part of the worm left. So you've been through these 0:09:50.400 --> 0:09:54.080 multiple generations of cutting a worm apart and letting it regenerate, 0:09:54.520 --> 0:09:58.679 and yet their experiments found that some learning training memory 0:09:58.880 --> 0:10:02.839 was retained across the multiple generations where there was no 0:10:02.920 --> 0:10:06.520 original part of the worm left. Again, how would this 0:10:06.600 --> 0:10:10.240 be possible? Like if memories are stored exclusively in the brain, 0:10:10.320 --> 0:10:13.880 how could a memory necessary to establish a conditioned response 0:10:14.320 --> 0:10:17.200 still operate within a tail that had its head cut off, 0:10:17.320 --> 0:10:19.840 or a segment of a worm grown from a segment 0:10:19.880 --> 0:10:21.920 of a worm grown from a segment of a worm 0:10:22.040 --> 0:10:25.000 that had been through the conditioning, and this led McConnell 0:10:25.040 --> 0:10:27.640 to suppose that he had evidence that memory may have 0:10:27.760 --> 0:10:32.720 strong chemical components. They're not limited to activity within the brain. 0:10:33.160 --> 0:10:38.120 There could be actual molecules of chemical memory coursing through 0:10:38.120 --> 0:10:41.200 the worm's body. Now, if this were true, this would 0:10:41.240 --> 0:10:45.880 of course be a revolutionary discovery, right right right, because 0:10:45.880 --> 0:10:49.199 of course it would conceivably apply to other organisms. I mean, 0:10:49.240 --> 0:10:51.720 that's that's the thing. It might force us to completely 0:10:51.760 --> 0:10:55.400 rethink what we thought we knew about memory, right And 0:10:55.440 --> 0:10:57.600 of course if it were true of flat worms, as possible, 0:10:57.640 --> 0:10:59.840 it would only be true of flat worms. But yeah, 0:10:59.880 --> 0:11:02.160 you don't know where else this would lead. Could it 0:11:02.240 --> 0:11:05.040 even be true of more complex animals. So it was 0:11:05.120 --> 0:11:08.319 this line of research about cut up flatworms retaining memories 0:11:08.679 --> 0:11:11.440 that led actually to the founding of the magazine we 0:11:11.480 --> 0:11:14.520 talked about in the last episode, The Worm Runners Digest. 0:11:15.280 --> 0:11:20.520 This was McConnell's magazine that quite strangely combined both real 0:11:21.160 --> 0:11:25.240 research on on planarians. It was like real flatworm research 0:11:25.360 --> 0:11:31.600 published alongside weird poems and joke articles and satirical articles 0:11:31.600 --> 0:11:33.760 and stuff. It's such a weird title. The worm part 0:11:33.840 --> 0:11:38.520 clearly relates to the worm experiments. But it also brings 0:11:38.559 --> 0:11:40.920 to mind like blade Runner, except it's worm runner. And 0:11:40.960 --> 0:11:43.520 it also makes me think of various Gary Larson far 0:11:43.600 --> 0:11:46.560 Side cartoons which a worm is perhaps, you know, wearing 0:11:46.559 --> 0:11:48.880 sweatpants and linn running. That's good, But the joke and 0:11:48.960 --> 0:11:51.360 title in the title is actually a reference to like 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:54.960 common terms used by psychologists of this period, lots of 0:11:55.000 --> 0:12:00.240 research about learning and memory involved rats and mazes, and oh, 0:12:00.400 --> 0:12:03.640 researchers who did this kind of work referred to themselves 0:12:03.720 --> 0:12:08.000 jokingly in the nineteen fifties as rat runners. McConnell's variation 0:12:08.160 --> 0:12:13.120 is self explanatory. Jerry the worm Runner, not Jerry Jr. 0:12:13.280 --> 0:12:18.720 Jerry O'Connell, James JF there James the worm Runner then, 0:12:19.440 --> 0:12:21.560 but yeah, actually so coming back. So this led to 0:12:21.600 --> 0:12:24.400 the founding of this strange magazine that he became very 0:12:24.400 --> 0:12:27.840 well known for. Uh. The story has summarized by Larry Stern, 0:12:27.960 --> 0:12:30.199 and I mentioned several sources at the beginning of the 0:12:30.280 --> 0:12:33.240 last episode. We're still referring to those sources in this episode. 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:35.840 One was an article by Larry Stern that that talked 0:12:35.840 --> 0:12:38.400 about the founding of this magazine. So in nineteen fifty nine, 0:12:38.840 --> 0:12:42.360 McConnell presented some of this work uh this work about 0:12:42.600 --> 0:12:46.480 chopping up flat worms and then supposedly retaining memories to 0:12:46.559 --> 0:12:49.560 an annual convention of the American Psychological Association the a 0:12:49.640 --> 0:12:52.480 p A. And this included results collected by a member 0:12:52.480 --> 0:12:56.320 of the planary in research group named Riva Jacobson. And again, 0:12:56.360 --> 0:12:59.520 this research showed that not only could a decapitated flatworm 0:12:59.600 --> 0:13:03.079 retain associate of learning, but essentially the ship of THESEUS 0:13:03.080 --> 0:13:06.520 flatworm containing no tissue of the original worm could also 0:13:06.559 --> 0:13:10.640 retain learning. And after the presentation, Newsweek published an article 0:13:11.000 --> 0:13:13.840 summarizing the research. This led to a huge surge of 0:13:13.920 --> 0:13:18.600 popular interest in McConnell's work, and so Larry Stern writes quote. 0:13:18.720 --> 0:13:22.720 Shortly after the Newsweek coverage, McConnell was inundated with letters 0:13:22.760 --> 0:13:26.120 from high school students from around the country asking where 0:13:26.160 --> 0:13:28.960 they could obtain worms for their projects and how they 0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:31.920 should go about caring for and training them. Some students, 0:13:31.920 --> 0:13:34.480 according to McConnell, demanded that he sent them a few 0:13:34.559 --> 0:13:37.400 hundred trained worms at once, as their projects were due 0:13:37.400 --> 0:13:42.160 within days. It sounds a little familiar, right, Students don't 0:13:42.200 --> 0:13:44.840 do things like this, But McConnell did want to help 0:13:44.840 --> 0:13:47.800 students conduct their own flatworm research. I get the feeling 0:13:47.880 --> 0:13:50.680 he was into this idea, but he realized very quickly 0:13:50.679 --> 0:13:52.719 that it didn't make sense to try to respond to 0:13:52.760 --> 0:13:56.560 each letter individually, so instead he decided to publish a 0:13:56.640 --> 0:14:00.400 manual on how to replicate the experiments performed by the PRG, 0:14:01.000 --> 0:14:05.559 and he titled this document The Worm Runners Digest. However, 0:14:05.640 --> 0:14:09.520 after publishing this manual under that title, McConnell started getting 0:14:09.559 --> 0:14:13.640 submissions to appear in future issues, so he began publishing 0:14:13.679 --> 0:14:16.960 this so called journal on a regular basis, again, including 0:14:17.000 --> 0:14:21.240 both real research and psychological in jokes, cartoons, poems, and 0:14:21.280 --> 0:14:23.560 all that kind of stuff interesting, So it's kind of 0:14:23.920 --> 0:14:29.200 accidentally became a continuing publication. Yeah. Now, as you can imagine, 0:14:29.440 --> 0:14:32.280 some people didn't take kindly to this mix of subject matter. 0:14:32.320 --> 0:14:35.800 In nineteen sixty four, after some readers complained that they 0:14:35.840 --> 0:14:38.760 couldn't tell the real research from the jokes and the satire, 0:14:39.160 --> 0:14:42.760 they started publishing the satirical elements upside down in the 0:14:42.800 --> 0:14:45.080 back half of the journal. So there was some attempt 0:14:45.160 --> 0:14:47.600 there to clear up the confusion. But I think for 0:14:47.640 --> 0:14:50.840 a lot of scientists, the pure proximity of the different 0:14:50.840 --> 0:14:54.480 material was was a problem no matter how clear the division. Well, 0:14:54.560 --> 0:14:57.600 I think that's understandable. We talked before about the Ignoble Prizes, 0:14:57.640 --> 0:15:01.120 for instance, about most of the individuals involved and honored 0:15:01.120 --> 0:15:05.000 by these prizes that celebrate, you know, scientific studies that 0:15:05.040 --> 0:15:07.280 are legitimate scientific studies, but that are in on some 0:15:07.440 --> 0:15:11.600 level humorous or amusing. But you still have some individuals 0:15:11.600 --> 0:15:14.720 in the scientific world who do not see the value 0:15:14.720 --> 0:15:17.760 of that. So if they're so, if feathers are ever 0:15:17.840 --> 0:15:21.080 ruffled by the Ignoble Prizes, obviously something like this would 0:15:21.120 --> 0:15:24.440 ruffle feathers as well. Yes, uh so. Then in nineteen 0:15:24.520 --> 0:15:27.520 sixty seven there came another split where the serious half 0:15:27.560 --> 0:15:31.120 of the journal was just formally cleaved and renamed in 0:15:31.160 --> 0:15:35.800 fact cloven and half like a flatworm, uh, chopped right off, decapitated. 0:15:35.880 --> 0:15:40.480 The serious half was renamed the Journal of Biological Psychology, 0:15:40.520 --> 0:15:43.800 and the worm runners Digest became the soul Haven of Humor, 0:15:43.920 --> 0:15:47.160 and it continued publishing that way until all. Right, on 0:15:47.200 --> 0:15:48.800 that note, we're going to take a quick break, but 0:15:48.880 --> 0:15:54.840 we will be right back. Alright, We're back alright, So 0:15:54.920 --> 0:15:58.240 to jump back into the progression of James McConnell's research. 0:15:58.720 --> 0:16:00.920 We're we're brought back to this uestion of a non 0:16:01.160 --> 0:16:05.520 brain chemical basis for memory. Couldn't memory, or at least 0:16:05.640 --> 0:16:09.720 some memory, some types of memories be stored chemically rather 0:16:09.800 --> 0:16:14.240 than structurally dispersed in the body, in molecules. And here's 0:16:14.240 --> 0:16:17.360 where we get to the cannibalism. So if there were 0:16:17.400 --> 0:16:21.120 in fact molecules within an animal representing some kind of 0:16:21.200 --> 0:16:25.240 chemical memory, such as memory of how to navigate a maze, 0:16:25.840 --> 0:16:29.720 could this be demonstrated? Could those molecules be shared from 0:16:29.760 --> 0:16:32.680 one animal to another? And this makes sense, that's what 0:16:33.040 --> 0:16:36.000 creatures do. They take molecules from each other, from other 0:16:36.080 --> 0:16:38.880 organisms and put them into themselves. Sure, we absorbed the 0:16:38.920 --> 0:16:43.040 molecules existing in other organisms for nutrition. Uh so maybe 0:16:43.120 --> 0:16:47.000 you could molecules be absorbed from one organism to another 0:16:47.280 --> 0:16:51.000 four memory transfer. So the first method they tried, and 0:16:51.120 --> 0:16:53.800 this is based on the reporting of one of those 0:16:53.880 --> 0:16:56.600 Larry Stern articles. The first method they tried was to 0:16:56.760 --> 0:17:00.440 splice the head of a conditioned worm onto the tail 0:17:00.560 --> 0:17:03.400 of an unconditioned worm to see if it would share molecules, 0:17:03.480 --> 0:17:06.760 right to force them to exchange the alleged memory molecules, 0:17:07.400 --> 0:17:09.720 but the transplant did not work. The head would not 0:17:09.800 --> 0:17:14.840 stay attached. Then they tried to liquefy fully conditioned flatworms 0:17:15.160 --> 0:17:18.600 and inject their juice into untrained worms, but this was 0:17:18.640 --> 0:17:23.080 also difficult. The planarians were too small to be injected basically, 0:17:23.119 --> 0:17:27.240 and sometimes they exploded when injected. In Larry Stern's words, quote, 0:17:27.280 --> 0:17:29.800 it was like trying to impale a prune with a 0:17:29.920 --> 0:17:34.239 javelin a lot of horrific things done to diplanarians in 0:17:34.280 --> 0:17:37.200 these experiments. I guess they are a simple enough organisms 0:17:37.240 --> 0:17:40.480 that have to be so upset about them, I guess, 0:17:40.520 --> 0:17:44.160 But it's still one can't help but pause a little 0:17:44.160 --> 0:17:49.000 on some of these, right, some of the grinding, the sauce, 0:17:49.080 --> 0:17:52.440 the gravy, the flatworm sauce. So how do you get 0:17:52.440 --> 0:17:56.160 those hypothetical memory molecules in there? If you can't inject them, 0:17:56.280 --> 0:17:59.560 you can't transplant ahead on. So the next route they tried, 0:17:59.640 --> 0:18:04.399 and this in the year nineteen sixty was experimental planarian cannibalism. 0:18:04.440 --> 0:18:06.880 This would be the old fashioned way of getting molecules 0:18:06.880 --> 0:18:09.399 from one organism into the other. Sure, so apparently the 0:18:09.440 --> 0:18:12.960 idea came from a flatworm researcher named Jay Boyd Best, 0:18:13.080 --> 0:18:16.879 who communicated to McConnell about the fact that one particular 0:18:16.920 --> 0:18:21.040 species of planarian was known for cannibalistic behavior. So here's 0:18:21.040 --> 0:18:24.600 the answer. You train the worms to respond to to 0:18:24.680 --> 0:18:27.479 a maze or to the light, whatever the conditioning stimulus is, 0:18:27.880 --> 0:18:30.719 and then they learn the conditioning and then you grind 0:18:30.760 --> 0:18:33.280 them up into worm gravy, and then you feed the 0:18:33.280 --> 0:18:37.000 worm gravy to the untrained naive worms, and you see 0:18:37.000 --> 0:18:41.600 what happens. And astonishingly, their early experiments with this method 0:18:41.640 --> 0:18:45.760 looked very promising, including a number of early replication attempts 0:18:45.760 --> 0:18:49.840 with blinding procedures to remove the possibility of experiment or bias, 0:18:49.880 --> 0:18:54.679 supposedly confirming their early results. So, if it were true 0:18:54.800 --> 0:18:59.919 that memory molecules are being exchanged through this strange cannibalistic ritual, 0:19:00.520 --> 0:19:03.400 could I, you know, with this extend to humans? Could 0:19:03.520 --> 0:19:07.680 could I drink your flesh and gain your memories? And 0:19:07.720 --> 0:19:10.920 how was it happening? What was the chemical basis here? 0:19:11.280 --> 0:19:13.840 So one interesting line of reasoning here followed from the 0:19:13.920 --> 0:19:19.000 still somewhat recent discoveries about genetic information being stored in 0:19:19.200 --> 0:19:23.760 and mediated by nucleic acids DNA and RNA remember, you know, 0:19:23.840 --> 0:19:26.080 we're not too far from from the discovery of the 0:19:26.119 --> 0:19:30.440 double helix here. So, if DNA and RNA could be 0:19:30.560 --> 0:19:35.960 involved in an information management process passing genetic information across 0:19:36.080 --> 0:19:40.240 generations from parents to offspring, could the same molecules also 0:19:40.400 --> 0:19:43.720 in code and mediate other types of information? I mean 0:19:43.960 --> 0:19:48.919 information is in the DNA. So specifically, could the information 0:19:49.119 --> 0:19:54.240 content of memories somehow be coded into DNA or RNA 0:19:54.800 --> 0:19:59.080 and then dispersed through the body, but also transferred from 0:19:59.119 --> 0:20:01.800 one body to another. And so this is the line 0:20:01.840 --> 0:20:05.119 they took. A McConnell and his team conducted experiments and 0:20:05.480 --> 0:20:08.159 published results that seemed to back up the idea, at 0:20:08.240 --> 0:20:11.400 least for a while, that RNA played some important role 0:20:11.440 --> 0:20:14.240 in facilitating memory, and that RNA could be used to 0:20:14.320 --> 0:20:19.360 chemically inoculate naive worms with the memory associations of their 0:20:19.400 --> 0:20:23.919 more worldly predecessors. And again, just consider how revolutionary this 0:20:23.920 --> 0:20:26.480 would be If it turned out to be true. You'd 0:20:26.480 --> 0:20:29.119 be forced to wonder how far the principle could be taken. 0:20:29.440 --> 0:20:32.159 What did this only apply to planarians or did it 0:20:32.240 --> 0:20:35.679 extend to other more complex animals. Would there be ways 0:20:35.720 --> 0:20:39.080 in which humans could undergo chemical learning? Could you train 0:20:39.160 --> 0:20:41.960 the mind in some way with an injection alone or 0:20:42.000 --> 0:20:44.600 even a pill. Even if it only worked for like 0:20:44.760 --> 0:20:48.199 broad associative learning such as you know, the kind of 0:20:48.200 --> 0:20:50.840 things you get through classical conditioning with an electric shock 0:20:50.920 --> 0:20:55.679 and a single stimulus, you could still possibly imagine profound benefits. 0:20:55.720 --> 0:20:58.600 Just one idea comes to mind, like say you're struggling 0:20:58.600 --> 0:21:00.920 with a drug addiction. You could you seek out an 0:21:00.920 --> 0:21:05.640 injection of of memory molecules to establish a strong averse 0:21:05.720 --> 0:21:08.320 reaction to your drug of choice such that you wouldn't 0:21:08.320 --> 0:21:10.760 want to take it anymore. Yeah, Or to get into 0:21:10.800 --> 0:21:13.840 some of the behavioral his ideas that we discussed in 0:21:13.880 --> 0:21:17.879 the first episode, some of those ideas that that that 0:21:18.119 --> 0:21:21.760 McConnell's very outspoken about it, even later in life. You 0:21:21.800 --> 0:21:23.919 could have some sort of a cocktail that could be 0:21:23.960 --> 0:21:28.320 injected into an individual that had a history of violence 0:21:28.440 --> 0:21:31.960 and history of of you know, breaking the law and 0:21:32.000 --> 0:21:36.119 rebelling against authority figures, and you could potentially fix them 0:21:36.119 --> 0:21:38.560 with this injection. Yeah. And of course there you get 0:21:38.600 --> 0:21:42.359 into the more nefarious possible thing, like you can probably 0:21:42.400 --> 0:21:48.520 instantaneously imagine so many horrible, insidious uses for injectable conditioning. 0:21:48.560 --> 0:21:51.040 If such a thing were possible. Oh yes, I mean, 0:21:51.640 --> 0:21:54.800 as with any science, many many fabulous uses come to mind, 0:21:54.840 --> 0:21:58.679 but so many nightmares as well. But we should stop 0:21:58.680 --> 0:22:01.200 and be real for a second here. Even if these 0:22:01.240 --> 0:22:04.160 findings had turned out to be totally solid for plenaria 0:22:04.280 --> 0:22:06.439 and more on that in a moment, we should know 0:22:06.520 --> 0:22:09.760 better than to freely extrapolate from worms to humans. I 0:22:09.760 --> 0:22:12.439 think this is one of the most classic traps that 0:22:12.520 --> 0:22:16.480 people fall into and interpreting biological research. I'd say more 0:22:16.560 --> 0:22:19.760 often as people extrapolating from like rats to humans. But 0:22:19.840 --> 0:22:22.320 this isn't a much larger jump. This isn't even a 0:22:22.400 --> 0:22:25.359 vertebrate animal. Yeah, I mean, you can't help. I often 0:22:25.359 --> 0:22:27.640 find that I can't help, but but at least think 0:22:27.800 --> 0:22:30.120 about that on some level when I read a science headline, 0:22:30.359 --> 0:22:32.919 I can't help it. Put myself into into it somehow 0:22:32.960 --> 0:22:36.000 and imagine myself as the creature, right, And it's often 0:22:36.040 --> 0:22:38.479 I mean, it's just done right there in the press. Again, 0:22:39.240 --> 0:22:43.400 it's fine to wonder about what possibilities could be implied 0:22:43.440 --> 0:22:47.119 by studies in rats for humans, but you can't just 0:22:47.280 --> 0:22:50.120 you know, conclude from one to another. We can't help 0:22:50.119 --> 0:22:53.720 but anthropomorphize virtually any creature, and if that creatures in 0:22:53.720 --> 0:22:57.040 a study, we're also going to end up anthropomorphizing that 0:22:57.119 --> 0:23:00.119 as well. But James McConnell, true to form, as we 0:23:00.160 --> 0:23:01.960 know from the last episode, was not one to be 0:23:02.040 --> 0:23:06.520 shy or cautious about interpreting his findings. He loudly proclaimed 0:23:06.520 --> 0:23:10.879 them to the public, advertising his results on TV programs. 0:23:10.880 --> 0:23:15.520 He apparently embraced the nickname mccannibal. Uh. And he predicted 0:23:15.560 --> 0:23:19.560 an era of memory pills like we just discussed. So 0:23:19.640 --> 0:23:21.840 you might be thinking, like, wait a minute, he should 0:23:21.840 --> 0:23:25.840 know better than to extrapolate from planarian even if you 0:23:26.040 --> 0:23:30.000 assumed the planarian research to be on solid uh. And 0:23:30.040 --> 0:23:32.800