近年来，哈佛大学的神经科学家萨姆·格什曼试图重新验证麦康奈尔的涡虫实验。然而，无论研究团队如何尝试，甚至前往麦康奈尔当年的采样地采集野生涡虫，今日的涡虫都无法表现出任何学习行为。研究人员猜测，这可能是因为当年的评估标准不够客观，或者是由于数十年来的环境变化与基因漂移，但涡虫学习在当下确实面临无法重现的困境。（关键数字：1960）
尽管涡虫记忆转移的研究走入死胡同，但其他生物的记忆转移研究正迎来复兴。例如，科学家成功通过注射遗传物质转移海兔的敏感化记忆，并发现秀丽隐杆线虫能通过摄入或接触含有特定反转录转座子的受训同类，来获得对病原菌的回避记忆。这些发现表明麦康奈尔关于化学物质传递记忆的直觉可能是正确的，只是他选错了实验对象，目前哈佛团队也已将研究重心转向秀丽隐杆线虫。
In the 1960s, psychologist James McConnell claimed that planarian flatworms could be classically conditioned and that their memories could be transferred to other worms through cannibalism. He believed that memories were encoded in RNA structures, a bizarre finding that temporarily captivated the scientific community before fading from mainstream research in the 1970s due to widespread replication failures, such as those by biochemist Melvin Calvin. (Key numbers: 20, 60, 70)
Recently, Harvard neuroscientist Sam Gershman's lab attempted to replicate McConnell's classic planarian experiments. However, despite their rigorous efforts—including sourcing wild planarians from McConnell's original collection sites in Michigan—the modern worms completely failed to show any learning behavior. Researchers hypothesize that this discrepancy could stem from inconsistent behavioral scoring in the 1960s or evolutionary genetic drift, rendering planarian learning currently unreproducible.
Although planarian memory transfer has hit a dead end, memory transfer research in other organisms is experiencing a scientific renaissance. Scientists have successfully transferred sensitization in sea slugs via RNA injections and demonstrated that C. elegans can acquire pathogen-avoidance memories by consuming or swimming near trained counterparts containing specific retrotransposons. These findings suggest McConnell's chemical memory hypothesis may have been correct, though he chose the wrong model organism, prompting Gershman's team to shift their focus to C. elegans.