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Body memory (BM) is a hypothesis that the body itself is capable of storing memories, as opposed to only the brain. While experiments have demonstrated the possibility of cellular memory[1] there are currently no known means by which tissues other than the brain would be capable of storing memories.[2][3]

Modern usage of BM tends to frame it exclusively in the context of traumatic memory and ways in which the body responds to recall of a memory. In this regard, it has become relevant in treatment for PTSD.[4]

Overview

Peter Levine calls BM implicit memory or more specifically procedural memory, things that the body is capable of doing automatically and not in one's consciousness. He clarifies 3 types of BM and frames his work in terms of traumatic memory consequence and resolution:[5]

  1. Learned motor actions - Action patterns that can be continuously modified over time by higher brain regions.
  2. Emergency response - Hardwired instinctual behaviors (i.e., fight or flight response, etc...).
  3. Attraction or repulsion - We are attracted to sources of nourishment and growth and repulsed from sources of injury or toxicity.

Nicola Diamond elaborates on the opinion of philosopher Merleau-Ponty and asserts that BM is formed by doing. Whether practicing a bodily activity or forming a reaction to a traumatic memory.[6]

Edward Casey speaks of BM as, "memory intrinsic to the body, how we remember by and through the body", rather than what is remembered about the body.[7]

Thomas Fuchs defines 6 different types of BM: procedural, situational, intercorporeal, incorporative, pain, and traumatic memory. He notes that they are not strictly separable from one another but "derived from different dimensions of bodily experience.[8]: 12  Michelle Summa further refines this definition as an implicit memory. A pre-thematic, operative consciousness of the past expressed through the body.[8]: 30 

Antonio Damasio calls these reactions to memories somatic markers or emotions that are expressed primarily as physical feelings.[9]

These memories are often associated with phantom pain in a part or parts of the body – the body appearing to remember the past trauma. The idea of body memory is a belief frequently associated with the idea of repressed memories, in which memories of incest or sexual abuse can be retained and recovered through physical sensations.[2] It may also be associated with phantom limb sensation but this is less common.[10]

Skepticism

In 1993, Susan E. Smith, presented a paper relating the idea of "Survivor Psychology" at a false memory syndrome conference, stated about BM that, "body memories are thought to literally be emotional, kinesthetic, or chemical recordings stored at the cellular level and retrievable by returning to or recreating the chemical, emotional, or kinesthetic conditions under which the memory recordings are filed.[2] She went on in the abstract of the paper, "one of the most commonly used theories to support the ideology of repressed memories or incest and sexual abuse amnesia is body memories." and "The belief in these pseudoscientific concepts appears to be related to scientific illiteracy, gullibility, and a lack of critical thinking skills and reasoning abilities in both the mental health community and in society at large"[2]

A 2017 systematic review of cross-disciplinary research in body memory found that the available data neither largely support or refute the claim that memories are stored outside of the brain and more research is needed.[11]

In the Encyclopedia of Phenomenology Embree notes that, "To posit body memory is to open up a Pandora's Box", and links the idea to physical associations of memory rather than as a memory stored in a bodily manner.[12]

Cellular memory

Cellular memory (CM) is a parallel hypothesis to BM positing that memories can be stored outside the brain in all cells.[13] The idea that non-brain tissues can have memories is believed by some who have received organ transplants, though this is considered impossible. The author said the stories are intriguing though and may lead to some serious scientific investigation in the future.[13] In his book TransplantNation Douglas Vincent suggests that atypical newfound memories, thoughts, emotions and preferences after an organ transplant are more suggestive of immunosuppressant drugs and the stress of surgery on perception than of legitimate memory transference. In other words, "as imaginary as a bad trip on LSD or other psychotropic drug."[14]

Flatworms

Biologists at Tufts University have been able to train flatworms despite the loss of the brain and head. This may show memory stored in other parts of the body in some animals.[15] A worm reduced to 1/279th of the original can be regrown within a few weeks and be trained much quicker to head towards light and open space for food, an unnatural behavior for a flatworm. With each head removed training times appear reduced. This may just be a sign of epigenetics showing the appearance of memory.[16]

However, in the 1950s and 1960s James McConnell flatworm experiments measured how long it took to learn a maze. McConnell trained some to move around a maze and then chopped them up and fed them to untrained worms. The untrained group learned faster compared to a control that had not been fed trained worms. McConnell believed the experiment indicated cellular memory.[17] The training involved stressing the worms with electric shock. This kind of stress releases persistent hormones and shows no evidence for memory transfer. Similar experiments with mice being trained and being fed to untrained mice showed improved learning. It was not a memory that was transferred but hormone enriched tissue.[17]

Current usage and research

See also: Epigenetics and Immune memory

In epigenetics there are various mechanisms for cells to pass on "memories" of stressors to their progeny. Strategies include Msn2 nucleo-cytoplasmic shuttling, changes in chromatin, partitioning of anti-stress factors, and damaged macromolecules between mother and daughter cells.[18]

In adaptive immunity there is a functional CM that enables the immune system to learn to react to pathogens through mechanisms such as cytoxic memory mediation in bone marrow,[19] innate immune memory in stromal cells,[20] fungal mediation of innate and inherited immunological response,[21] and T and B-cell immune training.[22] In this regard CM is essential for vaccine and immunity research.

References

  1. ^ Cosier, Susan. "Could Memory Traces Exist in Cell Bodies?". scientificamerican.com. doi:10.1038/scientificamericanmind0515-14b. Retrieved 31 May 2018.
  2. ^ a b c d Smith, Susan E. (1993). "Body Memories: And Other Pseudo-Scientific Notions of "Survivor Psychology"". Issues in Child Abuse Accusations. 5. Retrieved 31 May 2018.
  3. ^ Scott O Lilienfeld SO; Lynn SJ; Lohr JM, eds. (2002). Science and Pseudoscience in Clinical Psychology. The Guilford Press. ISBN 1-57230-828-1.
  4. ^ Bessel van der Kolk, M.D. (25 September 2014). The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. Penguin Publishing Group. ISBN 978-1-101-60830-2.
  5. ^ Peter A. Levine, Ph.D. (27 October 2015). Trauma and Memory: Brain and Body in a Search for the Living Past: A Practical Guide for Understanding and Working with Traumatic Memory. North Atlantic Books. ISBN 978-1-58394-995-5.
  6. ^ Nicola Diamond (1 April 2013). Between Skins: The Body in Psychoanalysis - Contemporary Developments. Wiley. ISBN 978-0-470-77816-6.
  7. ^ Edward S. Casey (15 September 2009). Remembering, Second Edition: A Phenomenological Study. Indiana University Press. p. 147. ISBN 978-0-253-11431-0.
  8. ^ a b Sabine C. Koch; Thomas Fuchs; Michela Summa (1 January 2012). Body Memory, Metaphor and Movement. John Benjamins Publishing. ISBN 978-90-272-1350-1.
  9. ^ Francois Ansermet (24 April 2018). Biology of Freedom: Neural Plasticity, Experience, and the Unconscious. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-0-429-91143-9.
  10. ^ Price, Elfed Huw (2006). "A critical review of congenital phantom limb cases and a developmental theory for the basis of body image". Consciousness and Cognition. 15 (2): 310–322. doi:10.1016/j.concog.2005.07.003. PMID 16182566. S2CID 165404.
  11. ^ Riva, Guisseppe (2018). "The neuroscience of body memory: From the self through the space to the others". Cortex. 104: 241–260. doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2017.07.013. PMID 28826604.
  12. ^ Lester Embree (29 June 2013). Encyclopedia of Phenomenology. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 456. ISBN 978-94-015-8881-2.
  13. ^ a b Carroll, Robert Todd. "cellular memory". skepdic.com. Retrieved 31 May 2018.
  14. ^ TransplantNation. Douglas Vincent. pp. 9–. GGKEY:H80NKZZSRW7.
  15. ^ Shomrat, Tal; Levin, Michael (2 July 2013). "An automated training paradigm reveals long-term memory in planaria and its persistence through head regeneration". Journal of Experimental Biology. 216 (20): 3799–3810. doi:10.1242/jeb.087809. PMID 23821717.
  16. ^ Anthony, Sebastion (11 July 2013). "Decapitated worms can regenerate their brains, and the memories stored inside". Extremetech. Retrieved 31 May 2018.
  17. ^ a b Bruce Hood (2009). Supersense: From Superstition to Religion - The Brain Science of Belief. Constable. ISBN 978-1-84901-030-6.
  18. ^ Xue Y, Acar M (2018). "Mechanisms for the epigenetic inheritance of stress response in single cells". Curr Genet. 64 (6): 1221–1228. doi:10.1007/s00294-018-0849-1. PMC 6215725. PMID 29846762.
  19. ^ Di Rosa F, Pabst R (2005). "The bone marrow: a nest for migratory memory T cells". Trends Immunol. 26 (7): 360–6. doi:10.1016/j.it.2005.04.011. PMID 15978522.
  20. ^ Crowley T, Buckley CD, Clark AR (2018). "Stroma: the forgotten cells of innate immune memory". Clin Exp Immunol. 193 (1): 24–36. doi:10.1111/cei.13149. PMC 6038004. PMID 29729109.
  21. ^ Quintin J (2019). "Fungal mediated innate immune memory, what have we learned?". Semin Cell Dev Biol. 89: 71–77. doi:10.1016/j.semcdb.2018.05.023. PMID 29842944.
  22. ^ Rosenblum, Michael D.; Way, Sing Sing; Abbas, Abul K. (21 December 2015). "Regulatory T cell memory". Nature Reviews Immunology. 16 (2): 90–101. doi:10.1038/nri.2015.1. PMC 5113825. PMID 26688349.

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