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PLANARIAN VIDEO, showing this charming flatworm in action. It is dynamic, curious, and beautiful. Hardly simple. https://lnkd.in/dBvzR5N View in LinkedIn

THE CORE. "Thompson and McConnell found that if they cut the worm in two, and allowed both worms to regenerate each half would develop the light-shock reaction. In 1962, McConnell repeated the experiment, but instead of cutting the trained flatworms in two he ground them into small pieces and fed them to other flatworms. He reported that the flatworms learned to associate the bright light with a shock much faster than flatworms who had not been fed trained worms." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planarian View in LinkedIn

FRAGMENT FROM NATURE deals with a platyhelminthes called planaria, a common free-living flatworm. Remarkable for its regenerative powers, this humble creature caused a stir when a publication suggested that trained flatworms, when ground up and fed to untrained flatworms, could accelerate learning, calling for professor hamburgers. Enjoy this historical event that continues to unfold today. View in LinkedIn

LIGHT, SHOCK AND MEMORY. "In 1955, Robert Thompson and James V. McConnell conditioned planarian flatworms by pairing a bright light with an electric shock. After repeating this several times they took away the electric shock, and only exposed them to the bright light. The flatworms would react to the bright light as if they had been shocked." https://lnkd.in/diZf4tN View in LinkedIn

NOT SUFFICIENT. "Just having a small molecule that replicates itself is not … ultimately very complex." https://lnkd.in/dQu8XRT View in LinkedIn

"THIS STUNNING FINDING, suggesting that some memory may be stored outside of the head and imprinted on the new brain during regeneration, led to a myriad of subsequent associative learning studies." http://jeb.biologists.org/content/216/20/3799 View in LinkedIn

MOLECULAR OUTSOURCING. "The eventual outsourcing of metabolic functions (including the replication of nucleic acids) to more competent protein enzymes would complete the journey from an abiotic world to the molecular biology we see today." http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ar200325v View in LinkedIn

THE PUBLICATION. "Memory transfer through cannibalism in planarians." JV McConnell, 1962. The publication that provoked avalanche of interest in the subject. Eating the professor enhanced learning. https://lnkd.in/d2sqt4F View in LinkedIn

THE BOMBSHELL. "Nearly 55 years ago it was demonstrated that planarians could be trained to learn a task, and following amputation of the head, the animals regenerating from the original tail sections remembered the original training." (JV McConnell). http://jeb.biologists.org/content/216/20/3799 View in LinkedIn

METAMORPHOSIS BRAINS. "Studies have identified several insect organisms in which memories survive the drastic reorganization of metamorphosis." This defies thinking about. http://jeb.biologists.org/content/216/20/3799 View in LinkedIn