Scientists have brought the movie Inception to life my implanting a memory into a mouse's brain, accroding to The Washington Post.

MIT neuroscientist Steve Ramirez and his colleagues identified brain cells associated with a specific memory and then tweaked that memory to make the rodent believe a fictitious occurrence really happened.

"If mice had Hollywood, this would be Inception for them," said Ramirez, whose study was published online Thursday in the journal Science.

The scientific achievement could impact medical treatment for humans.

"We would have every reason to expect this would happen in humans exactly as it happened in mice," said Michael J. Kahana, who was not involved in the study but is director of the University of Pennsylvania's Computational Memory Lab.

Though the concept of implanting a memory into a human brain is only theoretical at this point, researchers said this type of research could one day help treat emotional problems, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, by obstructing unwanted memories. And humans are already capable of altering their memories, though inadvertently.

False memories in humans often happen when a person swaps out one detail for another. Sometimes these mistakes are inconsequential, such as thinking that you left something in one place rather than the actual location, but in a courtroom setting, a false eyewitness account can be devastating for the accused.

Ramirez referenced a real-life event about an Australian psychologist who was erroneously arrested for a rape. Physically, he fit the bill of the victim's description, but he had an infallible alibi. He appeared on a live television show at the time of the rape. It turned out that the victim had been watching the show right before her attack. As a result, she described him as her attacker.

Ramirez next wants to try to implant pleasurable memories in mice, such as thoughts about rodents of the opposite sex.