End Times

MIT Neuroscientists Successfully Plant False Memories In The Brain

MIT neuroscientists have shown that they can plant false memories in the brains of mice. They also found that many of the neurological traces of these memories are identical in nature to those of authentic memories.

Published

13 years ago

July 25, 2013

Geoffrey Grider

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RELATED STORY: The Mark Of The Beast

The sinister implications of this story are so great that it boggles the mind. We live in a day and age where even our thoughts will no longer belong to us. Certainly, this unsaved world that we live in is preparing itself to meet Antichrist. Want to avoid that fate? Click here if you would like to miss his arrival.

From MIT: The phenomenon of false memory has been well-documented: In many court cases, defendants have been found guilty based on testimony from witnesses and victims who were sure of their recollections, but DNA evidence later overturned the conviction.

In a step toward understanding how these faulty memories arise, MIT neuroscientists have shown that they can plant false memories in the brains of mice. They also found that many of the neurological traces of these memories are identical in nature to those of authentic memories.

“Whether it’s a false or genuine memory, the brain’s neural mechanism underlying the recall of the memory is the same,” says Susumu Tonegawa, the Picower Professor of Biology and Neuroscience and senior author of a paper describing the findings in the July 25 edition of Science.

The study also provides further evidence that memories are stored in networks of neurons that form memory traces for each experience we have — a phenomenon that Tonegawa’s lab first demonstrated last year.

Neuroscientists have long sought the location of these memory traces, also called engrams. In the pair of studies, Tonegawa and colleagues at MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory showed that they could identify the cells that make up part of an engram for a specific memory and reactivate it using a technology called optogenetics.

Lead authors of the paper are graduate student Steve Ramirez and research scientist Xu Liu. Other authors are technical assistant Pei-Ann Lin, research scientist Junghyup Suh, and postdocs Michele Pignatelli, Roger Redondo and Tomas Ryan.

Seeking the engram

Episodic memories — memories of experiences — are made of associations of several elements, including objects, space and time. These associations are encoded by chemical and physical changes in neurons, as well as by modifications to the connections between the neurons.

Where these engrams reside in the brain has been a longstanding question in neuroscience. “Is the information spread out in various parts of the brain, or is there a particular area of the brain in which this type of memory is stored? This has been a very fundamental question,” Tonegawa says.

In the 1940s, Canadian neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield suggested that episodic memories are located in the brain’s temporal lobe. When Penfield electrically stimulated cells in the temporal lobes of patients who were about to undergo surgery to treat epileptic seizures, the patients reported that specific memories popped into mind. Later studies of the amnesiac patient known as “H.M.” confirmed that the temporal lobe, including the area known as the hippocampus, is critical for forming episodic memories.

However, these studies did not prove that engrams are actually stored in the hippocampus, Tonegawa says. To make that case, scientists needed to show that activating specific groups of hippocampal cells is sufficient to produce and recall memories.

To achieve that, Tonegawa’s lab turned to optogenetics, a new technology that allows cells to be selectively turned on or off using light.

For this pair of studies, the researchers engineered mouse hippocampal cells to express the gene for channelrhodopsin, a protein that activates neurons when stimulated by light. They also modified the gene so that channelrhodopsin would be produced whenever the c-fos gene, necessary for memory formation, was turned on.

In last year’s study, the researchers conditioned these mice to fear a particular chamber by delivering a mild electric shock. As this memory was formed, the c-fos gene was turned on, along with the engineered channelrhodopsin gene. This way, cells encoding the memory trace were “labeled” with light-sensitive proteins.

The next day, when the mice were put in a different chamber they had never seen before, they behaved normally. However, when the researchers delivered a pulse of light to the hippocampus, stimulating the memory cells labeled with channelrhodopsin, the mice froze in fear as the previous day’s memory was reactivated.

“Compared to most studies that treat the brain as a black box while trying to access it from the outside in, this is like we are trying to study the brain from the inside out,” Liu says. “The technology we developed for this study allows us to fine-dissect and even potentially tinker with the memory process by directly controlling the brain cells.”

Incepting false memories

That is exactly what the researchers did in the new study — exploring whether they could use these reactivated engrams to plant false memories in the mice’s brains.

First, the researchers placed the mice in a novel chamber, A, but did not deliver any shocks. As the mice explored this chamber, their memory cells were labeled with channelrhodopsin. The next day, the mice were placed in a second, very different chamber, B. After a while, the mice were given a mild foot shock. At the same instant, the researchers used light to activate the cells encoding the memory of chamber A.

On the third day, the mice were placed back into chamber A, where they now froze in fear, even though they had never been shocked there. A false memory had been incepted: The mice feared the memory of chamber A because when the shock was given in chamber B, they were reliving the memory of being in chamber A.

Moreover, that false memory appeared to compete with a genuine memory of chamber B, the researchers found. These mice also froze when placed in chamber B, but not as much as mice that had received a shock in chamber B without having the chamber A memory activated.

The researchers then showed that immediately after recall of the false memory, levels of neural activity were also elevated in the amygdala, a fear center in the brain that receives memory information from the hippocampus, just as they are when the mice recall a genuine memory.

These two papers represent a major step forward in memory research, says Howard Eichenbaum, a professor of psychology and director of Boston University’s Center for Memory and Brain.

“They identified a neural network associated with experience in an environment, attached a fear association with it, then reactivated the network to show that it supports memory expression. That, to me, shows for the first time a true functional engram,” says Eichenbaum, who was not part of the research team.

The MIT team is now planning further studies of how memories can be distorted in the brain.

“Now that we can reactivate and change the contents of memories in the brain, we can begin asking questions that were once the realm of philosophy,” Ramirez says. “Are there multiple conditions that lead to the formation of false memories? Can false memories for both pleasurable and aversive events be artificially created? What about false memories for more than just contexts — false memories for objects, food or other mice? These are the once seemingly sci-fi questions that can now be experimentally tackled in the lab.”

The research was funded by the RIKEN Brain Science Institute. source – MIT

Related Topics:False Memories mark of the beast MIT RIKEN Brain Science Institute

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End Times

The World Is The Closest It’s Ever Been To WWIII As 20 Nations Have Now Joined In Trump’s Iran War That Has Spread Far Beyond Just The Middle East

Published

1 week ago

March 10, 2026

Geoffrey Grider

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The World Is The Closest It’s Ever Been To World War III As 20 Nations Across Europe And Middle East Are Now Pulled Into The US War With Iran

There are moments in history when the gears of prophecy seem to audibly grind as they move into position, and we may very well be watching one of those moments right now. The rapidly expanding war centered on Iran is no longer a regional flare-up, it is a geopolitical wildfire drawing in nation after nation until the entire Middle East looks like a powder keg waiting for a single spark to set it off.

“He shall enter peaceably even upon the fattest places of the province; and he shall do that which his fathers have not done, nor his fathers’ fathers; he shall scatter among them the prey, and spoil, and riches: yea, and he shall forecast his devices against the strong holds, even for a time.” Daniel 11:24 (KJB)

What began as a direct confrontation between Israel, the United States, and Iran has now metastasized into something far larger. Missiles are flying across borders, drones are swarming the skies, naval forces are positioning in strategic waterways, and at least 20 nations are now either directly involved or caught in the blast radius of the conflict. Bases are being struck, alliances are activating, and the global chessboard is rapidly rearranging itself.

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Countries Now Directly Involved or Attacked

Depending on how you count (combatants, bases, or nations hit by missiles), about 15–20 countries are now involved or directly affected.

Main combatants:

United States
Israel
Iran

Other nations now involved:

France
United Kingdom
Australia
Greece
Turkey
Russia
China
Taiwan

Countries hit by Iranian missiles/drones or hosting US forces

Saudi Arabia
United Arab Emirates
Qatar
Bahrain
Kuwait
Jordan
Iraq
Oman
Turkey
Azerbaijan
Lebanon (Hezbollah involvement)
Cyprus (UK base struck)

If you have even a passing familiarity with Bible prophecy, you should feel the hair on the back of your neck standing up right now. The Bible does not predict a peaceful road leading to the appearance of Antichrist. Instead, it tells us that the last days will be marked by escalating wars, chaos among nations, and a global system struggling to maintain control. Jesus Himself warned that this would be the atmosphere of the end times.

“For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows.” Matthew 24:7-8 (KJB)

What we are watching unfold in the Middle East fits perfectly into that prophetic framework. This is not the end yet, but it is exactly the kind of destabilizing global conflict that moves the world closer to the moment when a false messiah will step forward promising peace. And that peace will be a lie. Trump’s Board of Peace in Gaza is doomed to failure before it ever even gets off the ground in you believe the prophets. “Believest thou the prophets?”

Emmanuel Macron orders armada to the Mediterranean

France is deploying about a dozen naval vessels, including its aircraft ‌carrier strike group, to the Mediterranean, Red Sea and potentially the Strait of Hormuz as part of defensive support to allies threatened by the conflict in the Middle East. Speaking in Cyprus before visiting the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier, which arrived this weekend in the eastern Mediterranean, President Emmanuel Macron sought to reassure his Cypriot counterpart after drones were intercepted heading towards the island last week. SOURCE

The prophet Daniel tells us that Antichrist will come to power through diplomacy and deception, presenting himself as the man who can solve the world’s impossible problems.

“And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many: he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes; but he shall be broken without hand.” Daniel 8:25 (KJB)

Think about that for a moment. What kind of world would be desperate enough to accept a global political savior? A world exhausted by war, a world terrified by instability, a world watching alliances collapse and nations burn. In other words, a world that looks exactly like the one we are watching develop right now.

The Middle East has always been the prophetic epicenter of end-times events, and Iran sits right in the middle of several key prophetic trajectories. Whether you look at Ezekiel 38, the alignment of nations around Israel, or the constant drumbeat of conflict surrounding Jerusalem, the pattern is unmistakable. The stage is being set.

“For God hath put in their hearts to fulfil his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled.” Revelation 17:17 (KJB)

Now, does this current war mean that World War III has officially begun? No. But it absolutely demonstrates how quickly the entire planet could be dragged into one. The last century proved how regional wars can explode into global ones. World War I began with a single assassination. World War II began with a territorial invasion. Once alliances begin activating and major powers begin maneuvering, events can spiral out of control faster than anyone expects. And right now, the dominoes are standing closer together than they have in decades.

Now The End Begins is your front line defense against the rising tide of darkness in the last Days before the Rapture of the Church

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“Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;” Titus 2:13 (KJB)

“Thank you very much!” – Geoffrey, editor-in-chief, NTEB

Christian Nationalism

Watchdog Group Says Combat Unit Commanders Telling Troops That Donald Trump Has Been ‘Anointed By Jesus To Light The Fire In Iran For Armageddon’

Published

2 weeks ago

March 3, 2026

Geoffrey Grider

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Combat Unit commanders have been accused of telling troops that Donald Trump is anointed by God and the war with Iran is to bring in Armageddon

Well, it’s official, we’ve arrived in Crazy Town, and it’s exactly as you would expect it to be. Operation Epic Fury is revealing itself to be a hastily-arranged and very poorly planned operation that Trump now says could last for many months. And earlier today a religious watchdog group received over 200 complaints from soldiers being told by their Combat Unit commanders that President Trump has been ‘anointed to light the fire in Iran that will bring Armageddon and the return of Jesus Christ’. Wow, are we there already? It would seem so, Now don’t shoot the messenger, I don’t make the news, I’m just telling you what’s going on here on Day 2,178 of 15 Days To Flatten The Curve. It’s Christian Nationalism out of control.

“Thus shall he do in the most strong holds with a strange god, whom he shall acknowledge and increase with glory: and he shall cause them to rule over many, and shall divide the land for gain.” Daniel 11:39 (KJB)

If even a fraction of these reports are accurate that commanders inside the Department of War are framing geopolitical conflict as the spark that lights Armageddon and preparing troops for the return of Jesus Christ — then we are looking at something profoundly dangerous. Not because prophecy isn’t real, and not because Jesus Christ isn’t coming back. He absolutely is. But because the Church has no business trying to manufacture the Second Coming through military power. Let’s be absolutely clear: the return of Jesus Christ is not triggered by American foreign policy, presidential ambition, or battlefield rhetoric. The prophetic timeline is set by God Almighty, not by generals, politicians, or Christian Nationalist enthusiasm. Armageddon is not something a nation prepares for. It is something God executes on His schedule.

“Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing.” Isaiah 40:15 (KJB)

Christian Nationalism, at its core, attempts to merge the mission of the Church with the power of the State. It confuses patriotism with piety and assumes that America plays the central prophetic role in God’s end-times program. It does not. America joins all the other nations of the world to come against Israel. America is not Israel, the United States is not the New Jerusalem, and the United States Constitution, however wonderful we might think it to be, is not Scripture. If Donald Trump has been anointed by God to do anything, at this point, it looks like he might be the one to trigger WWIII.

Trump’s commanders tell troops to prepare for Jesus’ return and issue chilling Armageddon prophecy

FROM THE DAILY MAIL UK: The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), a non-profit civil rights watchdog, said it has received 110 complaints from troops since the war broke out on Saturday. The complaints span more than 40 different units across 30 military sites, first reported on veteran journalist Jonathan Larsen’s Substack. A non-commissioned officer (NCO) wrote to the MRFF Monday that his combat-unit commander had claimed Trump was ‘anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth.’

‘He urged us to tell our troops that this was “all part of God’s divine plan” and he specifically referenced numerous citations out of the Book of Revelation referring to Armageddon and the imminent return of Jesus Christ,’ the NCO said.

The NCO, anonymized by MRFF, said they were writing on behalf of 15 others, including 11 Christians, a Muslim and a Jew. The troops are currently outside the Iran theater but on ‘ready-support’ status, meaning they could be deployed at any time. The NCO said that their commander’s comments ‘destroy morale and unit cohesion and are in violation of the oaths we swore to support the Constitution.’

A White House official denied that commanders were giving orders based on end times scripture, adding that the war had three aims: destroy Iran’s missiles, munitions industry and navy. The Pentagon did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The religious tenor at the top of the military is not confined to the battlefield.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a born-again Christian, holds monthly prayer meetings at the Pentagon and attends a weekly Bible study at the White House led by a preacher who argues that God blesses those who support Israel. Trump’s longtime spiritual adviser, Paula White, has made similar claims for decades, urging Christians to ‘stand with Israel’.

Pastor John Hagee, who visited the White House multiple times during Trump’s first term, told his congregation on Sunday that the war with Iran signaled we are nearing the end times. ‘Prophetically, we’re right on cue,’ Hagee said. ‘Sirens are wailing and prophecies written thousands of years ago are stepping onto the world stage.’

US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee claimed that Trump would receive a message from God shortly before the strikes on Iran in June.

‘I believe you will hear from heaven and that voice is far more important than mine or anyone else’s,’ he wrote to Trump. ‘You did not seek this moment. This moment sought you.’

The killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a US-Israeli joint strike on Saturday has plunged the Middle East into crisis. Iranian forces have launched missiles and drones at US embassies and bases across the Middle East, as well as against Israel and America’s Arab allies including Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Trump initially said the war would last four to five weeks but has since warned it could go on ‘far longer.’ READ MORE

Now The End Begins is your front line defense against the rising tide of darkness in the last Days before the Rapture of the Church

HOW TO DONATE: Click here to view our WayGiver Funding page

“Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;” Titus 2:13 (KJB)

“Thank you very much!” – Geoffrey, editor-in-chief, NTEB

End Times

As We Watch America Being Ripped To Pieces By Our Leaders Who Have Betrayed Her, Be Reminded And Comforted That This World Is Not Our Home

Published

3 weeks ago

February 24, 2026

Geoffrey Grider

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America is clearly in her last days, are you looking for that better country and Jesus Christ or will you go down with the ship?

When Barack Obama was president, I wrote over 350 articles and stories on the incredible damage he was inflicting on our nation. When he had his third term through the Trojan horse we call Joe Biden, I wrote nearly 100 articles calling out the atrocities that the Democrats were perpetuating. Here at the start of the second year of Trump 2.0, I have been chronicling for some time the dark spiritual climate that has settled over us with the witches and warlocks of the Christian Nationalism Movement, Turning Point USA and all the spiritually-deranged MAGA and QAnon denizens of the current administration. What has all this taught me? That’s what I’d like to share with you today.

“But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.” Hebrews 11:16 (KJB)

Here are three simple and unique truths that you would do well to acquaint yourself with. In fact, these truths are so self-evident that the entire world system is dedicated to keeping you from seeing and understanding them. What the Bible says will come to pass must come to pass.

1). The world is preparing itself to receive Antichrist

“Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.” 1 John 2:18 (KJB)

Over the past 17 years of reporting through Now The End Begins, the trend is undeniable and unmistakable, the kingdoms of this world are working diligently to prepare the coming 7-year kingdom for Antichrist. Like it or not, America is at the forefront of that movement. When Obama and Biden were running things, we got to see all the spiritual wickedness they brought in with the LGBTQ agenda and the glorification of what God hates. For the past year, we’ve watched as counterfeit Christianity in the form of Christian Nationalism has been working to bring in the 7 Mountains Mandate of end times idolatry based on greed, personal gain and self-glorification. 7MM has a different Jesus and preaches a different gospel. On one hand, Barack Obama and Donald Trump would be seem to be quite different, but they’re not. Both men are working to accomplish the same goal, just from opposite sides of the fence.

THIS IS WHERE NOW THE END BEGINS STARTED, AND 17 YEARS LATER, WE HAVE ONLY SUNK DEEPER INTO IT

2). America is being ravaged and sold to the highest bidder

“Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing.” Isaiah 40:15 (KJB)

As of this writing, America is over $37,000,000,000,000.00 in debt, a number that cannot and will not be paid back in anyone’s lifetime. But as this titanic debt continues to compile, politicians on both sides of the aisle have become fabulously wealthy. President Trump and his whole family have profited more than $4,000,000,000.00 since returning to office. America is being eaten alive from the inside out, and no one is coming to her rescue. No one. 2026 is the 250th anniversary of our founding, and it just may be the year it all falls apart. President Trump will be very happy to sell you his latest merch pitch, a watch he calls The Golden Tourbillion for a mere $100,000.00. Everything is for sale with Trump, including his soul.

3). Jesus Christ is the only safe place

“And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power; When he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe (because our testimony among you was believed) in that day.” 2 Thessalonians 1:7-10 (KJB)

Today is Day 2,171 of 15 Days To Flatten The Curve, a timeline that began when Donald Trump put the entire world on lockdown back on March 16th of 2020. Starting from that day forward, we believe the beginning of sorrows started, and we have continued the timeline because the events just keep coming. The time has passed, Christian, for debates on how to “save America”, that ship has long since sailed. But now is the perfect time for you to rededicate your life to the service of Jesus Christ as a gospel witness in these last days. We are not living in a Golden Age, and there is no Golden Age coming, that’s deception. But you can start right now laying up for yourself treasure in Heaven as the Lord tells us to. America must fall as the Bible says all nations will in the last days, but there is a ‘better country’ waiting for you to come and take up residence in. Get on the Ark, Christian, the rain is about to begin.