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Re:Evidence that Alzheimer’s ‘lost memories’ may one day be ... by BlytheSchuma on Thursday March 17, 2016 @10:53PM (#11309543)
How far are we from actually reading and copying memory? 50? 100 years?
Re:Evidence that Alzheimer’s ‘lost memories’ may one day be ... by Razengan on Thursday March 17, 2016 @11:14PM (#11309616)
And how far still from editing bad experiences out from memory, replacing them with pleasant ones that never happened, and freely moving that memory across customized bodies?

In other words, the future depicted in this weirdly charming and underrated anime: http://myanimelist.net/anime/3701/Kaiba

Good stuff, just be wary of spoilers.

Re:Evidence that Alzheimer’s ‘lost memories’ may one day be ... by snowwrestler on Friday March 18, 2016 @01:37AM (#11310122)
Given what we think we know about how memory works, we're probably much closer to editing out bad memories than we are to copying memories across bodies.

I say that because there does not seem to be a non-interactive way to recall memories. Every time a person experiences a memory (remembers), they also alter that memory. Researchers have been able to fairly easily alter or implant memories simply by suggesting the changes to subjects while they are in the process of remembering.

It sort of makes sense--the moment of remembering is itself a memorable moment, and so the brain updates or replaces the original memory with what was recalled the most recent time. If the recall was messy, the old memory will now be messy too.

Re:Evidence that Alzheimer’s ‘lost memories’ may one day be ... by return0 on Friday March 18, 2016 @04:35AM (#11310564)
A very very crude version of this has been done in mice. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25162525