The Harry Potter Pensieve: In Real Life??!?

Many of you non-Harry Potter fans will probably be wondering, "What in the blazes is a Pensieve?" It is in fact a magical basin used by Harry Potter and Albus Dumbledore in the fourth book of the series, The Goblet of Fire, to review and share certain memories that were important.

This is a Pensieve

Now, you may be wondering, "How does this relate have to real life?' Well, let me tell you! Scientists at UCLA have managed to transplant "memories" from one snail to another. They weren't actual memories such as you and I possess--this was rendered impossible simply because the snails used have very primitive brains.  The snails used are called Aplysia californica, also known as the California sea hare, shown below. 

The scientists were able to transfer the memories from one snail to another by removing an RNA molecule from one snail and implanting it in another. They also introduced the same RNA to a naked bundle of neurons in a petri dish. Now do you get the title?

A model for the experiment that was done

The memory stored in the RNA was a simple one as it had to be in order for the snails to respond to it because you know having a primitive brain brain makes it rather hard to respond to anything more then an electrical impulse. To test if the RNA had successfully been transferred and thus the snails' "memories" as well, the scientists used... you guessed it, an electrical impulse. The electrical impulses were intended to cause the snails to retract the little fleshy flaps hanging from their bellies. In theory, the snails that had the RNA memory implanted in them would respond to the electrical shock and retract their fleshy flaps (that word combination... EW) and snails without the memories would not. In actuality, this is what happened and thus added substantial evidence to the argument of memory transplant. The same results as the experiment were displayed in the petri dish which furthermore adding to the argument of memory transplant. So... what does this mean for humans? Although memory transplantation works on snails, it won't necessarily work on humans, but who knows, maybe in a decade or two we will have devised a way of transferring complex human memories and we might be able to cure syndromes like PTSD, which is caused by traumatizing memories. All in all, memory transplantation is kind of a mind blowing subject...get it? To read more about the snail experiment, here is the link to an interesting article from LiveScience.

When the results of this experiment were first released, it shocked the scientific community. If the experiment can be replicated and therefore have its results backed up by other experiments in animals with more complex brains, then it will completely redefine a lot of what we think we know about how memories work and open up new possibilities for treatments of mental disorders with RNA-based treatments. For another more scientific (but most definitely not more boring) article on the significance of this experiment and the effects it may have on the field of neuroscience, click here.