Planaria and the consumption of brains

You shouldn't be completely dismissive of this. It was replicated up as high as cats (trooly rooly), but the effects were never really big. Just recently they've found there are a few hundred new neurons appearing in the human brain every day (maybe via the diet;)): it's been suggested they might represent laying down of new memories. So it can definitely be used as a scientific fiction to explain how eating your enemies' or relatives' brains works after all. WRT SF antecedents, Damon Knight has a giant amoeba with a similar habit to the alzabo. Riffing on race memory, Greg Bear has DNA, (or was it microtubule based computers?), storing all one's ancestors' experiences in Blood Music. David Duffy.