Bonus: Methed Snails

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[00:00:08] This is BewilderBeasts, an infotainment show dedicated to inspiring curiosity for all ages

[00:00:13] by investigating the ways animals intersect at humanity.

[00:00:17] I am not a historian, an ethologist, a researcher, a scientist, a zoologist, a trained audio

[00:00:23] engineer or an expert in… well, anything.

[00:00:26] Y'all, I'm lucky if I can remember to put my clean laundry in the dryer before

[00:00:30] it gets funky.

[00:00:31] And while I make every effort to present things as accurately as I can with a fun flair, I'm

[00:00:36] going to mess up.

[00:00:37] And that's okay.

[00:00:38] I hope I've given you a nice place to jump off from on your own adventures into curiosity.

[00:00:42] Or at the very least, I've given you the key to win your next round of trivia.

[00:00:46] Hello and welcome to BewilderBeasts, recording 2,723.8 miles from Green Valley,

[00:01:15] Arizona.

[00:01:16] I'm your host Melissa Mickey McGrath.

[00:01:18] Today on this Patreon exclusive, we are talking about some Jedi mind tricks involving

[00:01:23] some slimy gastropods.

[00:01:25] Ready, set, slow.

[00:01:38] Snails, man.

[00:01:39] They really get the bad end of the stick in neuroscience.

[00:01:43] If only they could remember it.

[00:01:45] There are several brain studies that came out in the late 20s which weirdly feels

[00:01:50] like both yesterday and 7,000 years ago.

[00:01:56] These studies all had to do with snail memories.

[00:01:59] Since I didn't expect multiple studies, I don't know about you, I thought typing

[00:02:03] in snail memory study would have just been one study.

[00:02:07] But I discovered a series of tentacle-like studies all branching off from other brainy

[00:02:11] experiments all about snails and their brains.

[00:02:14] Here is one example from National Geographic.

[00:02:17] I found this blurb in a study, the one that I was initially looking into that started

[00:02:22] this whole thing.

[00:02:25] Neural networks can't easily be studied in humans.

[00:02:28] In large part because scientists can't dissect living people's brains, such studies would

[00:02:33] be unethical, not to mention illegal.

[00:02:35] But with snails, it's different.

[00:02:38] You'll be shocked to see that there was a hyperlink that said something about

[00:02:42] a related study.

[00:02:44] Well thank you National Geographic.

[00:02:45] I'm going to click right here and make my search history way more fun.

[00:02:52] That link took me to a whole study on methed out snails.

[00:02:57] Quote, scientists gave pond snails the amphetamine crystal meth.

[00:03:02] Scientists?

[00:03:03] Uh, what's up?

[00:03:07] How did y'all end up with the trope that y'all are just smart and kind of boring?

[00:03:11] Because this is not just nerdy stuff.

[00:03:14] Y'all are dosing shelled gastropods in a schedule too narcotic to explore the

[00:03:18] memory related brain processes that get humans so hooked on the drug, some people eat other

[00:03:24] people's faces, and many people get hooked on taking this illegal drug exactly one time.

[00:03:32] Just so they can say that they understand the brain stuff better.

[00:03:37] But also, I suspect, to kind of one up everyone else at the Thanksgiving table.

[00:03:43] Check this.

[00:03:44] So um, Jeffrey!

[00:03:46] What have you been up to this year?

[00:03:48] Well, Grandma, I've been studying to become a lawyer.

[00:03:51] It's tiring, grueling, you wouldn't understand.

[00:03:55] That's nice.

[00:03:56] What about you, Charles?

[00:03:58] I get snails high on crystal meth for science.

[00:04:02] That's nice.

[00:04:03] Pass the biscuits.

[00:04:05] So instead of a deep dive, I'm just going to have fun with a few studies and hopefully

[00:04:09] y'all can just follow your own curiosity into stone snails or, a hilarious thought,

[00:04:15] snails on speed.

[00:04:18] The first study I came across was how scientists were able to make snails remember something

[00:04:21] that didn't even happen to them.

[00:04:23] It's like a human eye witness testimony, but with slime.

[00:04:27] If you want to look this up, search for snail memory swap.

[00:04:30] It's like a psychological thriller from Arthur C. Clarke.

[00:04:35] Check this out.

[00:04:36] Dr. David Glansman from UCLA's Integrative Biology and Physiology Department ran a study

[00:04:41] that took the lesser known sequel to John Candy's Plane, Trains, and Automobiles,

[00:04:45] the trifecta of neurobiology.

[00:04:47] Snails, tails and shock.

[00:04:49] The scientists zapped the snail tails to train them to be familiar with the shock.

[00:04:54] I don't know what that means.

[00:04:57] I actually work in animal training.

[00:05:01] Shocks are painful at most, startling at best, and unless someone is training

[00:05:06] in association, like you see the yellow ball just before every shock, there's

[00:05:11] not a whole lot of training involved.

[00:05:13] You just respond.

[00:05:15] Because it hurts.

[00:05:18] Because it's a shock.

[00:05:21] But the team said that they quote trained the snails to be familiar with the zap

[00:05:25] on the butt.

[00:05:27] I've never thought about snail butts more than writing this paper.

[00:05:31] But once they were quote trained, or a be familiar or comfortable, I'm so confused

[00:05:36] by this training piece but that's not the important part, the researchers removed

[00:05:40] RNA from their nervous systems.

[00:05:43] That RNA, the information that says, I'm guessing, things hurt and put that

[00:05:49] information, that specific strand of RNA into the untrained or

[00:05:55] un-electrocuted snails.

[00:05:57] And within one day, the team noticed that snails who had never experienced

[00:06:00] shock were behaving as if they were.

[00:06:03] So how do we know that they were acting like snails who had been

[00:06:07] previously exposed to shock?

[00:06:09] Well snails have these little flappy bits by their stomachs that retract when

[00:06:12] they are in fear or in pain.

[00:06:15] And the snails who had multiple exposures to the shock retracted that for

[00:06:18] longer and longer periods compared to the snails who have never been exposed.

[00:06:24] For the first little zaps, the snails would retract those little flappy bits

[00:06:27] for a little period of time, maybe a second or two.

[00:06:30] But the snails who had been zapped before would hold those flappy bits in

[00:06:35] significantly longer.

[00:06:38] So the snails who had never been exposed to tail-tasing were sucking up

[00:06:43] their flappy bits for much, much longer durations once that RNA from

[00:06:48] these scared snails was implanted in their never before shocked bodies.

[00:06:55] And here's what's wild to me in my line of work.

[00:06:58] It may not be exciting to you, but it is to me.

[00:07:01] So I'm going to say it.

[00:07:02] It's my podcast.

[00:07:03] As a dog trainer, there is research out there that says that if you can

[00:07:07] only meet one parent of a potential puppy, make sure it's the mom.

[00:07:12] Stress thresholds, that point in which we proverbially lose it and we

[00:07:17] yell and we scream or we fight back or we're so stressed we shut down

[00:07:22] or in dog world bark, lunge and get really upset.

[00:07:26] And that ability to bounce back when you're stressed are genetic.

[00:07:31] And if you can meet mom, the likelihood that she passed that

[00:07:34] stress flexibility and social ability down to her pups tends to be higher,

[00:07:40] though it is not an absolute.

[00:07:42] When a female dog is born, she already has all of the eggs that she will

[00:07:46] ever produce in her lifetime inside her.

[00:07:49] And if she becomes pregnant and there's a female fetus inside her uterus,

[00:07:54] you now have three generations of female dogs showing up to the party.

[00:07:58] The mom, the baby and that baby's eggs.

[00:08:01] Three generations.

[00:08:02] And if mom dog is exposed to a massively stressful event, which can change her

[00:08:07] DNA and RNA at least two future generations of puppies are now exposed

[00:08:12] to higher levels of cortisol, the stress hormone that gets most attention,

[00:08:16] adrenaline, all of it.

[00:08:18] And you can through stress, change the entire outcome of that progeny's life.

[00:08:23] That absolutely has an effect.

[00:08:26] That stress has an effect down the line.

[00:08:29] So while there may not be an actual quote memory of stress transferred

[00:08:33] generationally, there certainly are chemical and hormonal reactions to stress

[00:08:38] that are mapped long before the second generation of babies are even born.

[00:08:43] And that's laying the roadmap for generations.

[00:08:48] So when I work with people who are looking for a new puppy to bring home,

[00:08:51] I always suggest meeting mom if they can.

[00:08:54] If she is visibly nervous or a hot mess or displaying signs of distress, or she

[00:08:59] seems like she might have a shorter fuse, I often advise to walk on and

[00:09:04] hopefully look for a puppy who's from a mom who's a bit more social

[00:09:07] and happy to see you.

[00:09:08] Though this is not an absolute.

[00:09:11] Those genes are more likely to pass on.

[00:09:14] Not always, but enough that data does back this up.

[00:09:19] So what are the implications for those genes?

[00:09:22] What are the implications for those studies for the electrocuted escargot?

[00:09:27] Well, we aren't exactly transferring memories, even though that's what

[00:09:31] the headlines say like it's an episode of the Twilight Zone.

[00:09:35] This looks more like at least my very cursory reads of pop science

[00:09:38] articles that are not the source piece that perhaps maybe, maybe

[00:09:43] more of what I was describing earlier, that the stress response to stimuli

[00:09:48] may have changed the RNA, the roadmap, the information in the genes of the

[00:09:53] donor snails instead of an actual physical memory in the brain.

[00:09:58] That this taser and this little snail yelling in a high squeaky voice,

[00:10:03] don't tase me bro.

[00:10:05] Those are different things entirely, but it is still really cool.

[00:10:09] And it indicates that there may be other ways that we could

[00:10:12] maybe use this for good.

[00:10:14] But I've seen sci-fi horror.

[00:10:17] This is going to be used for bad.

[00:10:19] Do not touch this Elon Musk.

[00:10:22] And also, evil I'm sure.

[00:10:25] I've seen Black Mirror, the TV show on Netflix.

[00:10:28] This whole one-sided memory swap seems something straight out of a

[00:10:31] science fiction novel.

[00:10:33] I just hope that some snails in the very near future get to experience

[00:10:36] something that is not painful in their fake memory.

[00:10:40] Maybe just give a snail a memory about that one magical night in Cabo.

[00:10:46] A very, very slow magical night in Cabo.

[00:10:53] Cause snails.

[00:10:56] The second thing that seems related to what goes up must come down corollary.

[00:11:00] If we can make snails remember something that never happened,

[00:11:03] can we remove memories?

[00:11:06] This may actually have implications in human neuroscience in that if

[00:11:10] someone has a traumatizing event that leads to paralyzing activity,

[00:11:14] like an assault or a robbery, or witness a traumatic death, a book

[00:11:19] spoiler, stuff like that.

[00:11:21] Okay.

[00:11:21] So let me get into this.

[00:11:22] Imagine me going to a whiteboard with my little marker, fancy

[00:11:26] white lab coat, style in big glasses.

[00:11:29] Right?

[00:11:30] Cool.

[00:11:30] Let's do this.

[00:11:31] I'm gonna explain some associative memory.

[00:11:35] So this is how my job works.

[00:11:37] You associate one thing for something else.

[00:11:39] When my dog captain is looking for scent that I ask him to find,

[00:11:43] he's not looking for the scent.

[00:11:44] He's looking for the thing that is going to get him his food.

[00:11:48] Scent equals food.

[00:11:49] For cadaver dogs, dead body equals tug toy.

[00:11:53] For me, cell phone ring equals someone wants to say hi.

[00:11:57] These associations, these physiological responses to stimuli, even if I

[00:12:02] change my cell phone ring, if someone in a grocery store has the same ring

[00:12:06] I used four years ago, I am still going to immediately turn and respond

[00:12:12] to it at least once.

[00:12:14] These neural pathways scream, Hey, that's my phone.

[00:12:17] Oh wait, no, it's not.

[00:12:20] But I still initially responded and that is associative learning,

[00:12:25] but that can backfire in not so good memories, things that the

[00:12:29] environment have in them or things that happen in close proximity to each

[00:12:33] other can elicit trauma response, intense anxiety, all of those

[00:12:38] horrible, horrible feelings.

[00:12:40] So let's say you're going to the store, right?

[00:12:42] And you're trying to get a gallon of milk in your hands.

[00:12:45] And just as you're hoisting that milk onto the conveyor belt, your arm is

[00:12:49] engaging and you're lifting in this very specific motion, a robber comes

[00:12:53] into the store and yells, put up your hands or I'll shoot.

[00:12:57] Now you're fine, but weeks later, you go to pull milk out of the

[00:13:03] refrigerator and put it in your cereal, just in the same way that

[00:13:07] you hoist that milk onto the table can completely alter your day.

[00:13:12] That can trigger a debilitating panic attack.

[00:13:16] These can potentially, these associative memories can potentially

[00:13:19] have lasting effects on someone's day-to-day life.

[00:13:22] The milk did not threaten this person with violence, but that

[00:13:26] association between the milk and the way that you lift it and the event

[00:13:30] was so close in proximity that they are forever linked.

[00:13:34] And this link is what scientists are working towards breaking using snails.

[00:13:39] It's not the ending to the sixth sense or the actual traumatizing event.

[00:13:43] It's the association and saving the best for last.

[00:13:47] You didn't think that I would just gloss over

[00:13:50] methed out snails, right?

[00:13:52] Crack snuckles.

[00:13:56] All right, let's go.

[00:13:59] First huge disclaimer, as a show that started off talking to children,

[00:14:05] I just want to say straight up taking any drugs prescription or not

[00:14:10] without the guidance of any doctor.

[00:14:13] Not advised.

[00:14:15] Please do not take what I am basically gleaning from a gizmodo piece on

[00:14:19] the internet and jump to any conclusions that sidle up next to,

[00:14:24] hmm, she's saying I should do meth.

[00:14:27] Hard no, that is not what I'm saying.

[00:14:30] I wouldn't and just please don't.

[00:14:33] Okay.

[00:14:34] So before I jump into something that may seem like I'm advocating

[00:14:37] for a meta amphetamines, I'm not.

[00:14:40] Let's first talk about why scientists are all lined up on snails

[00:14:43] for neuroscience exploration.

[00:14:46] Snails have about 20,000 neurons.

[00:14:49] Neurons receive information from our senses that sight, taste,

[00:14:53] smell, all of that, right?

[00:14:54] And they send commands to our muscles to move, go freeze all of it.

[00:14:59] They are also the electrical engineers at every step of the communication process.

[00:15:04] We see a bear at a bird feeder.

[00:15:07] Our neurons take that information.

[00:15:09] They send the electrical impulses to our muscles that allow us to fight,

[00:15:13] do not fight bears, flight, do not run for bears or the other F.

[00:15:19] Phone, start recording the bear.

[00:15:23] Our neurons are amazing and important and 20,000 of them seem

[00:15:28] like a whole lot and it is if you're a snail, but compared to humans,

[00:15:34] we have 80 bub-bub-bub-billion neurons in our brains and our bodies.

[00:15:39] Snails 20,000 super easy for scientists to study.

[00:15:44] They are also easy to identify what each of those 20,000 neurons do.

[00:15:49] This one says snail get the phone record the bear.

[00:15:53] This one says electrical impulses to lift up the flappy bits when

[00:15:57] they make its butt hurt by a scientist with a taser.

[00:16:00] Cool.

[00:16:00] Neurons.

[00:16:01] Soup's important.

[00:16:02] Got it.

[00:16:05] So if scientists want to study what variables have an effect on brain

[00:16:09] activity, neurons is a good place to start and if that variable is a

[00:16:14] schedule to narcotic like cocaine, PCP, other highly addictive drugs

[00:16:20] that are classified by their high likelihood of developing a dependence

[00:16:24] or addiction and make scientific sense to start with snails.

[00:16:29] So here's what the scientists did.

[00:16:31] They put meth in pond snail water, and as the snail started to feel

[00:16:35] the effects of methamphetamine, they would raise their little Pneuma

[00:16:38] stones or the extendable periscope like tubes that reach snail noses

[00:16:43] that go whoop up right above the water.

[00:16:46] The researchers would poke the snails to deter them from getting

[00:16:50] more oxygen from over the water.

[00:16:53] Wouldn't that kill the snail if they can't breathe?

[00:16:56] No, pond snail.

[00:16:58] Because these pond snails have a super cool feature, they can

[00:17:02] breathe through their skin, which is really useful if you are trapped

[00:17:05] in a car with a dog who just ate baked beans.

[00:17:09] According to the American Psychological Society, quote, the

[00:17:12] snail uses just three neurons to decide whether in a particular

[00:17:16] environment it can breathe through its skin or if it can extend

[00:17:19] breathing tubes called Pneuma stones to reach more oxygen above water.

[00:17:26] To see whether meth would improve the snail's ability to remember

[00:17:28] conditioned behavior, they soaked snails in meth-laced deoxygenated

[00:17:33] water, waited 24 hours and conditioned the snails to not use their

[00:17:38] Pneuma stones by poking them any time they started to extend the tubes.

[00:17:43] The next day, the snails who had been trained the same way in

[00:17:47] non-meth-laced water had already forgotten the conditioning, but

[00:17:52] the meth-trained ones remembered.

[00:17:55] It seems that the snails in the meth water seemed to learn faster

[00:17:58] and retain the information for about a day, which is about as long

[00:18:03] as some reported methamphetamine highs, which is faster and longer

[00:18:07] than the snails not in the washed wash.

[00:18:09] When researchers added more of the crink to the drink, they

[00:18:12] discovered that the snails recalled the information immediately

[00:18:16] and went back to their behaviors learned while on meth previously.

[00:18:20] And this is totally wild to me.

[00:18:23] Having a sober snail fail at a task, I would be curious to see if they

[00:18:27] used positive reinforcement, give a snail something for holding its breath

[00:18:32] instead of poking it with a stick every time it brought its nose up

[00:18:35] to the surface to breathe oxygen.

[00:18:38] Maybe the snails aren't learning faster, but instead realize they

[00:18:42] just didn't like being surprised when they tried to breathe above water.

[00:18:46] So I still have a lot of questions about this study.

[00:18:48] So they learned to stay down?

[00:18:50] I don't know.

[00:18:52] I feel like there's a whole lot more here to dissect and discover, but

[00:18:55] this does offer some support maybe for humans already.

[00:19:01] Common wisdom and advice from those leaving rehabilitation facilities,

[00:19:05] people that is not snails, is to avoid their old haunts.

[00:19:09] The places they like to visit while high on meth.

[00:19:12] Meth especially.

[00:19:14] It seems to create these intense associations and the memories formed

[00:19:17] while on the drug are really hard to dissociate from the experience of being high.

[00:19:23] So when you put, quote, I remember this thing with the length of the

[00:19:27] high for meth, which is about 24 hours in some cases for people,

[00:19:31] the euphoric happy feelings while on the drug and the inability to

[00:19:35] forget makes quitting nearly impossible for some people who are addicted to meth.

[00:19:43] And here's how hard it is to quit meth, even with the side effects

[00:19:47] listed on justice.gov.

[00:19:49] Quote, this drug can cause rapid heart rate, increased blood pressure and

[00:19:57] damage to small blood vessels in the brain, which can lead to stroke.

[00:20:01] Chronic use of the drug can result in inflammation of the heart lining.

[00:20:05] Overdoses of methamphetamine can cause hyperthermia, elevated

[00:20:10] blood temperature, convulsions and death.

[00:20:15] Individuals who abuse methamphetamine also have episodes of violent

[00:20:19] behavior, paranoia, anxiety, confusion, and insomnia.

[00:20:24] Methamphetamine also can produce psychotic symptoms that persist for

[00:20:28] months or years after the individual has stopped using the drug.

[00:20:33] Even with all of that, plus the additional risk of scarred or collapsed

[00:20:38] veins, infections of the heart lining and valves, abscesses, pneumonia,

[00:20:42] tuberculosis, and liver and kidney disease, people cannot quit because

[00:20:47] the memories formed while on meth are just so intense.

[00:20:50] And the only way to access them is through the gate of an

[00:20:53] intense euphoric high, only accessed by meth.

[00:20:58] This is a drug that is so universally considered instantly addictive.

[00:21:03] One shot in your addictive.

[00:21:05] So don't f*** with meth.

[00:21:11] So I hope you can see why visiting familiar places while high is

[00:21:14] inadvisable to recovering addicts who are trying to get help.

[00:21:18] These memories are just too easily triggered and to feel them fully,

[00:21:22] that temptation just to try the drug one more time, and it's never

[00:21:27] one more time, is a gravitational force.

[00:21:30] It's still not clear why methamphetamine memories are so

[00:21:33] resilient compared to others, but one possible reason is that the

[00:21:36] drug may disrupt the mechanism that allows us to forget, which is

[00:21:40] why scientists were zapping other snails in the butt.

[00:21:44] If they can remember in this case, can they in the other?

[00:21:47] And if so, can I swap these meth memories?

[00:21:51] Can I make a snail feel better?

[00:21:53] But I also think making a snail feel worse could be easily

[00:21:57] manipulated like a Bond villain.

[00:21:59] So next time you see a snail, say thank you for your service.

[00:22:04] We're starting to understand some connections that we're

[00:22:06] previously more mystery than concrete.

[00:22:09] Connections and addiction that can help people hopefully, memory formation

[00:22:13] and associative learning through traumatic events, which helps so

[00:22:17] many people function day to day.

[00:22:19] As well as the sort of misnamed memory swapping, which can help

[00:22:24] in cases of dementia and cognitive decline, which is an area study

[00:22:28] that is so vitally important.

[00:22:31] Overall, these snails are mind sleuths.

[00:22:35] Hi, hi, slimy mind sleuths.

[00:22:39] Feel free to pour a legal beverage out for your snail homie today.

[00:22:52] So thanks for joining me today on Bewilderbeasts.

[00:22:55] Thank you so much all of you for supporting this show.

[00:23:00] For the next few months, I promise to still put out your episode and

[00:23:03] that come October, I'm going to be presenting in the UK.

[00:23:09] It's going to be really exciting.

[00:23:10] I am excited.

[00:23:11] I don't know what that means for you, but I'm excited.

[00:23:15] Um, and again, we only have a few months left of the show.

[00:23:19] Once I go back live for the main feed.

[00:23:22] So if there are topics that you would be interested in hearing

[00:23:24] about on the podcast, know of any historical animals to change the

[00:23:28] world, animals to help humans, wacky animals in the news, like

[00:23:31] maybe the peacocks that have to get vasectomies and are mating

[00:23:34] with Tesla cars because they're shiny, send them in to

[00:23:38] Bewilderbeastpod.com, tweet at Bewildered Pod, Bewilderbeastpod on

[00:23:42] Facebook and Bewilderbeasts on Instagram.

[00:23:45] I'm Melissa McHugh McGrath with Mutt Stuff Media.

[00:23:48] Go get curious.

[00:23:50] I got today's information from National Geographic.com, Vice.com,

[00:23:55] LiveScience.com, ScientificAmerican.com, NewYorkTimes.com, NCBI.NLM.NIH.gov,

[00:24:05] rolls right off the tongue, IFLScience because as always, I-F-L Science.

[00:24:12] Justice.gov and APA.org.

[00:24:16] Links as always, I hope are in the description of today's episode.

[00:24:20] Intro music is Tiptoe Out The Back by Dan Lebowitz.

[00:24:22] Thanks, Dan.

[00:24:23] Interstitial music by MK2.

[00:24:25] Additional music is provided by Pixabay and Freesound.org.

[00:24:30] Do not forget to like and subscribe on the main feed.

[00:24:34] Keep sharing those main feed episodes.

[00:24:36] It really helps get interest up for the last part of this whole thing and

[00:24:41] share with your curious friends.

[00:24:43] Thank you so much for listening.

[00:24:45] I love you guys.

[00:24:46] I'll see you next time.

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