Misstatements of the "Aspirational Neuroscience" Site

 Although it is claimed that memories are stored in the brain (specifically in synapses), there is no place in the brain that is a plausible storage site for human memories that can last for 50 years or longer. The proteins that make up both synapses and dendritic spines are quite short-lived, being subject to very high molecular turnover which gives them an average lifetime of only a few weeks or less. The 2018 study here precisely measured the lifetimes of more than 3000 brain proteins from all over the brain, and found not a single one with a lifetime of more than 75 days (figure 2 shows the average protein lifetime was only 11 days).  Both synapses and dendritic spines are a “shifting sands” substrate absolutely unsuitable for storing memories that last reliably for decades. Synapses are connected to dendritic spines, which have short lifetimes. A 2018 paper has a graph showing a 5-day "survival fraction" of only about 30% for dendritic spines in the cortex.  A 2014 paper found that only 3% of new spines in the cortex persist for more than 22 days. Speaking of dendritic spines, a 2007 paper says, "Most spines that appear in adult animals are transient, and the addition of stable spines and synapses is rare." A 2016 paper found a dendritic spine turnover rate in the neocortex of 4% every 2 days. A 2018 paper found only about 30% of new and existing dendritic spines in the cortex remaining after 16 days (Figure 4 in the paper). 

So it should be doubly-clear that synapses cannot store memories that can last for decades. Similarly there are two reasons why information would not last long if written on maple leaves outdoors: (1) the fact that maple leaves decay after a few months, and (2) the fact that the wind tends to blow away leaves lying outdoors. 

If humans were storing their memories in brains, there would have to be a fantastically complex translation system (almost infinitely more complicated than the ASCII code or the genetic code) by which mental concepts, words and images are translated into neural states. But no trace of any such system has ever been found, no one has given a credible detailed theory of how it could work, and if it existed it would be a “miracle of design” that would be naturally inexplicable.
If human brains actually stored conceptual and experiential memories, the human brain would have to have both a write mechanism by which exact information can be precisely written, and a read mechanism by which exact information can be precisely read. The brain seems to have neither of these things. There is nothing in the brain similar to the “read-write” heads found in computers.  The brain is also lacking in all of the things that might make instant memory retrieval possible, things such as addresses, indexes and sorting.  So if memories were stored in brains, you would have to suffer the most ridiculous delays every time you wanted to retrieve knowledge or a memory. 

As discussed here, humans can form new memories instantly, at a speed much faster than would be possible if we were using our brains to store such memories. It is typically claimed that memories are stored by “synapse strengthening” and protein synthesis, but such things do not work fast enough to explain the formation of memories that can occur instantly.

For decades microscopes have been powerful enough to detect memories in brains, if memories existed in brains. Very much brain tissue has been studied by the most powerful microscopes: both brain tissue extracting from living patients, and brain tissue extracted from someone very soon after he died. Very many thousands of brains have been examined soon after death.  Microscopes now allow us to see very clearly what is in the tiniest brain structures such as dendritic spines and synapse heads. But microscopic examination of brain tissue has failed to reveal any trace whatsoever of learned information in a brain.  No one has found a single letter of the alphabet stored in a brain; no has found a single number stored in a brain; and no one has ever found even a single pixel of something someone saw a day or more before.  If memories were stored in human brains, microscopes would have revealed decisive evidence of such a thing decades ago.  But no such evidence has appeared. 

There is nothing in the brain that looks like learned information stored according to some systematic format that humans understand or do not understand. Even when scientists cannot figure out a code used to store information, they often can detect hallmarks of encoded information. For example, long before Europeans were able to decipher how hieroglyphics worked, they were able to see a repetition of symbolic tokens that persuaded them that some type of coding system was being used. Nothing like that can be seen in the brain. We see zero signs that synapses or dendritic spines are any such things as encoded information. 

We know that human memory recall can occur massively with complete accuracy. There are numerous cases of people who memorized with complete accuracy the text of books of hundreds of pages. But synapses do not reliably transmit information. Scientists have repeatedly told us that an individual synapse will transmit a nerve signal with a reliability of 50% or less. So every time a nerve signal crosses a synapse, it is a coin flip as to whether that signal will be successfully carried across the synapse gap. 

The theory that human memories that can last for 50 years are stored in synapses contradicts pretty much everything we know about systems that can permanently store and instantly retrieve information and everything we know about synapses and everything we observe about human memory performance. You could reasonably compare such a theory to the theory that certain clouds in the sky are nuclear missile bases set up by the Swiss to threaten your nation. That would pretty much contradict everything we know about the Swiss, everything we know about clouds, and everything we know about nuclear missile bases. 

So in light of such realities, what can be said about a web site https://aspirationalneuroscience.org/ that is offering a $100,000 prize for the first person to "decode a non-trivial memory from a static map of synaptic connectivity"? Simply that it is offering a prize for something that can never be done.  You can compare such a site to some web site offering a million dollar prize for the first geologist who finds a rock storing a human's life history.  Such a prize would never be awarded, because rocks don't store life histories. 

The site offering this prize makes many untrue statements. Early in its main page we read these claims:

• "Research over the last 100 years has already made tremendous progress by identifying the key structural and molecular building blocks of neuronal computation." There is no actual evidence that neurons compute. Attempts to compare the brain to a computer are extremely misleading. As explained here, the brain has nothing like seven of the main things that computers use to store and retrieve information. The term "compute" has different definitions. The simpler definition is the ability to perform mathematical operations. Nothing in a brain has any resemblance to a device for performing any type of mathematical operations. Another definition of "computer" is to perform operations like a computer, by executing software instructions. Nothing in a brain bears any resemblance to software instructions, nor does anything in a brain bear any resemblance to a system for processing software instructions. 
• "Recent years have seen an explosion of new neuroscience techniques, such as: 1. Large-scale recording and manipulation of neuronal ensemble dynamics, 2. Tagging and optogenetic manipulation of cellular and synaptic memory engrams, 3. Advanced techniques for probing the structural and molecular changes underlying learning and memory, and 4. Automated electron microscopic mapping of dense synaptic connectivity (synapse-resolution connectomics)." Items 2 and 3 on this list are  untrue. No one has observed any engrams (alleged storage places of memories), and no one has tagged or optogenetically manipulated engrams. Claims to have done such things are typically junk science papers based on very poor designs and very faulty research practices, such as the use of way-too-small study group sizes, and the use of unreliable "freezing behavior" techniques for judging recall. No one has any understanding of "structural and molecular changes underlying learning and memory."

On a Quotes page of the site, we have a collection of quotes by neuroscientists. The neuroscientists state their belief that memories are stored in brains.  None of these quotes give us any real evidence to back up such claims. Some of the statements are dead wrong. 

• "We now know that the consolidation of long-term memories requires synaptic plasticity..."  No, we do not know any such  thing. Because synapses are made of proteins that have a short lifetime (less than a few weeks), claims about synapses do nothing to explain memories that can last for 50 years. 
• "Synaptic inputs vary in strength as a function of sender and receiver neuron activity, and this variation in strength can encode knowledge, by shaping the pattern that each neuron detects. There is now copious empirical evidence supporting this principle and it can probably be considered uncontroversial in the neuroscience community at this point.” There is zero robust evidence to support any claim that synapses encode knowledge. Calling a dubious opinion "uncontroversial" is an old and fallacious argumentative technique, and here it is used very ineffectively by the inclusion of the "probably" qualifier. 
• "[I]n the last 10 years findings from this field have provided key contributions towards establishing the idea that stable, long-lasting changes in synaptic function underlie learning and memory.”  No such contributions have occurred. 

In one of these quotes, we get a little candor. Someone states, "The substrate of LTM [long-term memory] is persistent or lasting synaptic change, according to the central dogma of neuroscience, which dates back to Ramón y Cajal and others." The Cambridge Dictionary defines a dogma as "a fixed, especially religious, belief or set of beliefs that people are expected to accept without any doubts." One of the definitions of dogma given by Merriam-Webster dictionary is "a point of view or tenet put forth as authoritative without adequate grounds."

The Aspirational Neuroscience site is an awards site. But how can you run a neuroscience awards site when the main thing you have offered an award for is something there is no hope of ever happening in the foreseeable future? The web site itself confesses, "It is anticipated that it will take many years for any research lab to claim the Memory Decoding Prize." The answer is to offer prizes for lesser research. On the page here, the site lists neuroscience research it has awarded prizes to. Some of this research is very low-quality science research. For example:

• A 2023 prize (apparently $12,500) went to the paper "Synaptic correlates of associative fear memory in the lateral amygdala."  The paper hinges upon the use of an utterly unreliable method of trying to measure recall in rodents, the method of trying to judge "freezing behavior." All papers relying on such a method are examples of junk science, for reasons I explain in my post here. The study group sizes used in this paper were ridiculously small, such as groups consisting of only three mice or four mice.  
• Another 2023 prize went to the paper "Selective corticostriatal plasticity during acquisition of an auditory discrimination task." It's a study using a way-too-small study group size of only 7 mice.
• A 2023 prize went to the paper "Corticostriatal Plasticity Established by Initial Learning Persists after Behavioral Reversal." It's a paper worthless as evidence because it used way-too-small study group sizes such as only 7 rodents or 8 rodents. 

It is regrettable that a "visionary anonymous donor" has funded large cash prizes for junk work such as this. When really well-done science experiments are rewarded financially, it helps to encourage high-quality scientific work. But when junk neuroscience is awarded with prizes, there is the opposite effect. When low-quality neuroscience research is awarded with prizes, that helps encourage the production of more low-quality neuroscience research papers.