A New Study Implants Emotional Memories in Mice
A new study conducted at the Sagol Department of Neurobiology has identified a neural pathway in the brain that determines whether a particular taste will have positive emotional value, and therefore consumed in future encounters, or negative, and therefore avoided in future encounters. The researchers also succeeded in using the neurons identified to erase or transplant memories that were never experienced in reality. The study was published in the Journal of Neuroscience. "In the current study, we were able, for the first time, to cause mice to assign a negative value to an event that never took place, and accordingly, to remember a feeling that was not experienced in reality," said PhD student Haneen Kayyal, who led the study with postdoctoral fellow Dr. Adonis Yiannakas from the University of Haifa. The researchers identified a small population of neurons (hundreds out of several millions) that determine whether the mice like or dislike a particular taste, and even succeeded in silencing or activating them, thus implanting an emotional value that was not experienced in reality.