Originally published by NewsLab.
Scientists at MIT who implanted or ‘incepted’ false memories in the brains of mice were surprised to discover their experiment was a false memory implanted by the mice themselves.
“It’s quite disorienting,” said Susumu Torongawa, “you’re sitting around discussing how you shocked a mouse and made it run through a maze, and then you realise there’s no video record and all your cheese is missing”.
False memories are known to play havoc in courts of law, where DNA or other corroborating evidence can sometimes disprove eyewitness testimonies. But this is believed to be the first case where the memory of false memories were falsified in the memory of neuroscientists by their subjects.
Or is it?
New evidence now suggests that the memories of the mice falsifying the memories of the scientists falsified the memories of the mice are in fact false, and that the mice themselves are the lower life forms which we always expected them to be. So we fellow humans can relax in the knowledge that our brains and cheese supplies are safe.
Do you have any information on missing memories? If so, please send more cheese c/- Susumu Torongawa at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Human-town.
Reported by Dave Bloustien
Dave Bloustien's Grand Guignol 