AI Insight
A research team at Harvard investigated a decades-old question in neuroscience by studying planarian flatworms, which can regenerate their entire bodies including their brains. The study examined whether memories could be transferred between organisms or retained after complete brain regeneration. The research revisits controversial experiments from the 1960s that suggested memories might be stored in molecules throughout the body rather than exclusively in the brain.
Why it matters
This research challenges fundamental assumptions about how and where memories are stored in biological systems. If memories can persist beyond brain tissue or be transferred between organisms, it could revolutionize our understanding of learning, memory consolidation, and potentially lead to new approaches in treating memory-related disorders.
I t was the dead of winter in Boston. The surface of the Charles River was frozen solid. But Zachary Kelso braved the biting cold to finally put to rest a mystery that has haunted neuroscience labs for over half a century. To do that, Kelso, a research assistant in the Harvard lab of the neuroscientist Sam Gershman, needed some worms. Specifically, planarians: arrow-headed flatworms…