Scientists Plant False Memories in Mice--and Mice Buy It
Activation of neurons during memory formation is sufficient for an animal to later recall that memory
By Joel N. Shurkin and Inside Science News Service
Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed the ability to implant mice with false memories. The memories can be easily induced and are just as strong as real memories, physiological proof of something psychologists and lawyers have known for years.
在麻省理工学院的科学家研制出了给老鼠植入虚假记忆的技术。这些记忆可以轻易人为诱发而且就像真实记忆一样深刻；这一科技进展成为了心理学家与律师所熟知的记忆植入的生理学依据。
The findings are a serious matter. According to the Innocence Project, eyewitness testimony played a role in 75 percent of guilty verdicts eventually overturned by DNA testing after people spent years in prison. Some prisoners may even have been executed due to false eyewitness testimony. It was not because the witnesses were lying. They were just wrong, said Susumu Tonegawa, a molecular biologist and the lead author in the MIT study.
这些研究成果事关重大。根据Innocence Project（直译为＂无辜者计划＂）的统计，在本被判定有罪的人在监狱中被关押数年，后来因为DNA检测而得以翻案的案例中，有75%的案例最初定罪是目击证人的证词而导致。由于虚假的目击证词，本不该处决的囚犯却被处死的事情也不是不可能发生。但是有些情况下，目击者并非在撒谎，实际上他们对于事件的认知从一开始就是错误的；这场研究的领导者，分子生物学家Susumu Tonegawa如此解释。
In the longest criminal trial in American history, the McMartin family, who operated a preschool in California, was charged with multiple incidents of child abuse. After seven years and $15 million in prosecution expenses, some charges were dropped and the defendants were acquitted of others when it became clear some of the accusations were based on false memories, some possibly planted by childrens’ therapists.
在美国历史上时间最长的犯罪审判为McMartin家族一案；在加利福尼亚州曾开办一所幼儿园的McMartin家被指控犯有多起虐待儿童的行为。在七年的官司纠纷并累计花费1.5亿美金的诉讼费后，有一些指控被原告方放弃，另一些则被法庭判决不成立：原因在于，后来其中一些针对McMartin家的指控被发现是基于虚假的记忆，其中一部分可能是被所谓＂受害儿童＂的治疗专家所植入的。
There is now a False Memory Syndrome in scientific literature and a False Memory Syndrome Foundation.
现在「虚假记忆综合证」已经被正式计入科学文献；「虚假记忆综合症基金会」也被建立。
Last year, Tonegawa and his team published a study in Nature showing how false memories could be implanted in mice. They first put mice in a chamber -- the scientists called it the Red Room -- and let the animals roam around exploring so they could build up a contextual memory of it.
去年，Tonegawa与他的研究小组在「自然」杂志上发表了一篇研究报告，说明如何使给老鼠植入记忆成为可能。首先，研究人员将老鼠放在他们称之为「红房间」的一号室，之后让老鼠在这个空间内四处游荡探索，让它们建立对于该环境的基本认知。
After a while, they gave the mice mild electric shocks to their feet and a blue light flashed in their brains delivered by a fiber-optic cable, implanting the memory that the Red Room was a dangerous place.
过了一段时间，研究人员便对老鼠的脚掌进行轻微电击，向老鼠植入＂「红房间」很危险＂的信息，并在记忆形成的同时通过植入老鼠大脑中的一根光纤向鼠脑传递蓝色的闪光。
The next day researchers put the mice in an entirely different chamber – the Black Room – and let them explore peacefully. The mice were not afraid until the light flashed. The mice froze again although they were not in the chamber where they had received a shock. Why?
第二天研究人员将之前接受电击的老鼠放在另一个完全不同的房间（称之为「黑房间」）并且让他们没有阻碍地自由探索。老鼠没有表现出受到电击时的恐惧，但是当蓝色闪光信号再次传入大脑时老鼠们却表现得如同受到了电击一样。这是为什么？
Memory is largely in the hippocampus, Tonegawa said, in a section called the dentate gyrus. Tonegawa, Steve Ramirez, a graduate student, and their colleagues identified the neurons there that were associated with experiential learning.
Tonegawa提到，记忆主要储存在「海马」（延伸于闹的每一个侧脑室下角底上的一条海马状突起，被认为是感情与记忆中心）的「齿状回」部分。Tonegawa、毕业生Steve Ramirez 与他们的同事辨认出了神经元中与经验式学习有关的那些并加以利用。
Events stimulate neurons when a memory is stored. Scientists discovered earlier that shining a blue light at the cells had the same result, activating the cells through a light-sensitive protein called ChR2. It’s called optogenetic manipulation because genes are involved in setting off the neurons.
当记忆被储存在大脑中时一系列反映回刺激神经元，而研究人员之前发现了向这些细胞照射蓝色光能够通过光敏蛋白ChR2刺激细胞，从而起到相同的作用。这种做法被称为光电基因操控，因为在激活神经元的过程与基因有关。
Shining a blue light into the brains of the mice in the Black Room triggered the fear of being shocked as they had been in the Red Room.
在「黑房间」里向老鼠的大脑中传递蓝色闪光激发了在「红房间」中老鼠对于电击的恐惧感。
“It demonstrated for the first time that activation of the neurons during formation of memory is sufficient for an animal to do everything needed to recall their memory,” Tonegawa said.
Tonegawa说：＂这个试验首次说明了激活记忆形成时所用的神经细胞足以在动物在做任何事的时候重新唤起那一段记忆。＂
In a paper published this week in Science, the team went further.
在这周「科学」杂志上的一篇报告中，研究小组发表了更进一步的研究成果。
Mice were let into the first chamber, and nothing happened. They acquired the memory of the environment and that it was safe. Then the scientists put the mice in a second chamber and sent a light into the brain, which would have triggered memories of the first chamber. Then came a mild shock.
老鼠被放入了第一个房间，什么也没有发生。老鼠们获得了关于这个环境的记忆，产生了＂这个环境是安全的＂的印象。之后老鼠被放到第二个房间里，并且通过光纤向大脑发射光信号，从而引发关于第一个房间的记忆。随即研究人员便对老鼠进行电击。
The mice were placed back in the first chamber, where they had roamed safely before. The mice immediately ran to a corner and crouched. Knowledge of the context -- the safe environment of the first box -- was overpowered by the memory of the shock in the other chamber.
之后老鼠被放回他们之前安全地探索过的第一个房间里。进入房间后，老鼠们立即跑到角落里缩成一团。老鼠们对于第一个房间＂安全＂的记忆被在另一个房间内遭受电击的记忆所压制。
When the mice were put in a third chamber unlike the first two and were not given the light flash, they were unafraid. They were not reminded of their previous experiences, real or imagined.
当老鼠们再次被放倒与前两个房间不同的第三个房间时，研究人员没有给老鼠的大脑传递光信号，于是老鼠没有丝毫畏惧感。无论是它们之前真实或虚假的记忆，老鼠们都没有回忆。
The scientists had planted a false memory, and the mice believed it.
研究人员们向老鼠的大脑内植入了虚假的记忆，而老鼠们信以为真。
Tonegawa said people who remember falsely are not lying; they completely believe what they say. People with false memories are among those who can beat polygraph machines. Even when confronted by facts, such as DNA evidence, they refuse to believe their memories are wrong.
Tonegawa声称诉说虚假记忆的人并非在撒谎，因为他们完全相信他们所说的话。拥有虚假记忆的人可以通过测谎仪测试；即使有DNA等有力证据摆在面前，他们也不会相信他们的记忆是错误的。
Elizabeth Loftus a cognitive psychologist at the University of California, Irvine, who has done more than almost anyone in attacking false and implanted memories in courtrooms and who has appeared as an expert witness in many trials, including the McMartin trial, said the finding was “very exciting.”
Elizabeth Loftus 是来自于加利福尼亚大学的一名认知心理学家，是在法庭上攻击虚假记忆及人为植入记忆的先锋，同时也是许多审讯的「专家证人」；McMartin家的审讯是她也任其一职。她说这次研究的成果十分激动人心。
“It converges well with human data showing you can plant emotional memories into people’s minds,” she said.
＂这一发现与由以往经验所得出的情感性记忆可以被植入人们的头脑这一结论相吻合。＂她是这么说的。
Tonegawa, who won the Nobel Prize for Physiology in 1987, said there is a bright side to all this. Only humans have false memories; animals do not unless, like the mice at MIT, false memories are forced on them, he said.
作为1987年生理学诺贝尔奖得主，Tonegawa认为这一研究还有另一面让人感到欣慰：只有人类有虚假的记忆，而除非被人为力量影响动物是没有虚假记忆的。
“Humans are the most amazing, imaginative animals,” he said. “We are thinking. Lots of things are going on. Humans are recording what happens and passing it on.”
＂人类是最奇妙，最富有想象力的动物，＂他说。＂我们无时无刻都在思考，我们的大脑中每时都有许多事在发生。人类在不断纪录发生的每一件事，并将其传播给别人。＂
An imperfect memory, Tonegawa said, may be the price we pay for the imagination and creativity that makes us human.
Tonegawa说，不完美的记忆可能是我们为了获得让我们成为＂人＂的想象力及创造力所付出的代价。
发表于 2013-7-29 23:05
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