A recent article, "Scientists find way to erase select memories in mice" from CBC News, stated that scientists had "elicited memory loss by manipulating the activity of a protein called alpha-CaM kinase II,” but the way they tested this seemed really fishy to me. They tested the mice for memory loss by classically condidtioning them to anticipate/ fear an electrical shock after hearing a certain noise. Once they were conditioned to fear the noise, they were treated with the brain protein, and were left alone for one month. After the month was up, they were put in a different cage than they were originally conditioned to fear the noise in and they did not act scared when they heard the noise, but when they were put in the original cage, they showed a fear response to the noise.
These findings cannot necessarily be interpreted to mean that the mice had forgotten their fear of the noise. The more likley explanation is that classical conditioning is not generalizable. If the conditions change (eg. A different cage or a slightly different noise) the mice would not show the fear response.
Scientists should not be wasting their time on this kind of thing, in my humble opinion, they should be finding the cure for cancer, or developing some kind of miracle corn that will end world hunger.
These findings cannot necessarily be interpreted to mean that the mice had forgotten their fear of the noise. The more likley explanation is that classical conditioning is not generalizable. If the conditions change (eg. A different cage or a slightly different noise) the mice would not show the fear response.
Scientists should not be wasting their time on this kind of thing, in my humble opinion, they should be finding the cure for cancer, or developing some kind of miracle corn that will end world hunger.
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