This is crazy stuff:
A new study finds that moths can remember things they learned when they were caterpillars -- even though the process of metamorphosis essentially turns their brains and bodies to soup.
The implications of the PLOS study extend far beyond the world of moths and butterflies. For instance, one of the fundamental (and unresolved) mysteries of memory is how our memories persist. The cells of the brain, like all cells, are in constant flux. The average half-life of a brain protein is only 14 days. Our hippocampal neurons die, and are reborn, the mind in a constant state of reincarnation. And yet, we somehow manage to preserve our sense of the past. Like a moth, we maintain our memories in the face of constant metamorphosis.
Brain & Behavior
Comments (5)
Crazy indeed. The process in the cocoon is so complex and involves so much "deconstruction", that (I read somewhere) sometimes you may get two moths out of just one caterpillar. And yet there is memory preserved in between! My threshold for being amazed by a study is quite high nowadays, but this one did it.
Posted by: dileffante | March 10, 2008 7:15 PM