Scientists implant "memories" into bird brains to teach them songs

Abstract of the original study:

> Animals learn many complex behaviors by emulating the behavior of more experienced individuals. This essential, yet still poorly understood, form of learning relies on the ability to encode lasting memories of observed behaviors. We identified a vocal-motor pathway in the zebra finch where memories that guide learning of song-element durations can be implanted. Activation of synapses in this pathway seeds memories that guide learning of song-element duration and can override learning from social interactions with other individuals. Genetic lesions of this circuit after memory formation, however, do not disrupt subsequent song imitation, which suggests that these memories are stored at downstream synapses. Thus, activity at these sensorimotor synapses can bypass learning from auditory and social experience and embed memories that guide learning of song timing.

From: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/366/6461/83

The article could leave the impression that the birds are watching the flashes of light, like watching TV. For a layman article, they failed to mention that brain of the bird has been cut open or probed and that the flashes of light are shone directly on the neurons.{1} I guess they thought it was too icky to make that clear.

Optogenetics seems like a real breakthrough. Great quote from Wikipedia: "The far-fetched possibility of using light for selectively controlling precise neural activity was thought of by Francis Crick in 1999."

{1} https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optogenetics

If I understand this correctly, it seems like the researchers were just stimulating vocal areas of the bird brains--which to me seems like an entirely different thing than implanting memories into the bird's brain. If you stimulate my motor cortex in a way that makes me kick my leg, it would be a little silly to say that you implanted a memory of me kicking--the memory is something that occurs after the fact. Maybe the original article makes this distinction a little clearer?

This technique is novel, but there are already established methods of implanting false memories in people, with children the most susceptible. A study [0] showed how easy it was to induce a false memory of hugging/shaking hands with Bugs Bunny at Disneyland, which is impossible because there is no Bugs Bunny in Disney

[0]http://staff.washington.edu/eloftus/2003Nature.pdf

The avian equivalent of the basal ganglia has activity that goes up at the beginning and ending of discrete song segments. So they expressed light triggered ion channels in those brain regions to mimic the activity patterns of actual song and trains the birds to learn novel patterns they had never actually heard.

"We do what we must because we can."

This just takes us one step closer to the avian overthrow of mankind predicted in Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds". Or maybe just scientists messing with people to make them want to eat bird seed.