Snails On Meth Have Better Memories

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Posted by R!CH on May-29-2010 02:21:

Snails On Meth Have Better Memories

Snails On Meth Have Better Memories
by Scott Hensley

A little meth helps snails like this one learn and remember.

We would never have suspected that you can train snails to do anything.

But, if you poke a submerged great pond snail, or Lymnaea stagnalis, with a stick a few times, you can actually teach it to keep a snorkel-like breathing tube closed and instead absorb oxygen only through its skin.

Now, if you're a neuroscientist, you can use trained snails like these to test how water-soluble chemicals might affect memory. Say, for instance, how does methamphetamine-laced water affect a snail remembering to keep its snorkel shut?

Scientists from Washington State University and the University of Calgary did a bunch of experiments like that and found just a little meth helped the snails learn and hold on to their lessons. Even when researchers tried to confuse the snails by getting them to remember something else, the meth-exposed snails kept the memories firm in their slimy minds.

Why would you want to go to all this trouble with hundreds of snails, as these scientists did? Well, the simple circuitry of snails makes it a lot easier to study how neural systems works than, say, the complicated brains of humans. And the findings in snails confirm the memory-enhancing effects of the drug in other animals, like humans.

The results appear in current issue of the Journal of Experimental Biology.

article: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/...716&sc=fb&cc=fp
study: http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/conte...act/213/12/2055

this question has been bugging me for years! thank god someone finally looked into it

Posted by butterfly on May-29-2010 02:29:

i hope you are not using this study as a justification to do meth.

Posted by Marcus Summers on May-29-2010 02:35:

they are just snails

what do they need to remember anyway

Posted by R!CH on May-29-2010 02:35:

quote:
Originally posted by butterfly
i hope you are not using this study as a justification to do meth.

wow that's exactly what i was doing! you're good!

Posted by R!CH on May-29-2010 02:36:

quote:
Originally posted by Marcus Summers
they are just snails

what do they need to remember anyway

green = good, salt = bad

Posted by LoveHate on May-29-2010 02:44:

damn scientist.

those snails must have been awake for weeks.

Posted by EddieZilker on May-29-2010 02:47:

quote:
Originally posted by LoveHate
damn scientist.

those snails must have been awake for weeks.

There is nothing more depraved than a snail with messianic psychosis.

Posted by djhaziel on May-29-2010 02:52:

I wanna eat snails on meth

can any french share their story

Posted by Sunsnail on May-29-2010 02:57:

SUP GUYS

Posted by R!CH on May-29-2010 03:09:

quote:
Originally posted by Sunsnail
SUP GUYS

Posted by Silky Johnson on May-29-2010 04:26:

Posted by Omega_Blue on May-29-2010 05:57:

quote:
Originally posted by jennypie

There is no joy in salting someone. Everyone loses.

Posted by Meat187 on May-29-2010 10:16:

Sounds like it belongs in here:
http://www.tranceaddict.com/forums/...1&forumid=16&s=

Posted by KilldaDJ on May-29-2010 12:15: