Implant gives telepathic powers to rats

*Raph's Girl* · 03-01-2013, 04:07 PM

This sounds like a plot straight out of TMNT!

Quote:

The world's first brain-to-brain connection has given rats the power to communicate by thought alone.

"Many people thought it could never happen," says Miguel Nicolelis at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. Although monkeys have been able to control robots with their mind using brain-to-machine interfaces, work by Nicolelis's team has, for the first time, demonstrated a direct interface between two brains – with the rats able to share both motor and sensory information.

The feat was achieved by first training rats to press one of two levers when an LED above that lever was lit. A correct action opened a hatch containing a drink of water. The rats were then split into two groups, designated as "encoders" and "decoders".

An array of microelectrodes – each about one-hundredth the width of a human hair – was then implanted in the encoder rats' primary motor cortex, an area of the brain that processes movement. The team used the implant to record the neuronal activity that occurs just before the rat made a decision in the lever task. They found that pressing the left lever produced a different pattern of activity from pressing the right lever, regardless of which was the correct action.

Next, the team recreated these patterns in decoder rats, using an implant in the same brain area that stimulates neurons rather than recording from them. The decoders received a few training sessions to prime them to pick the correct lever in response to the different patterns of stimulation.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...hic-power.html

*gobo* · 03-01-2013, 04:24 PM

Wow. Neat.

*MikeandRaph87* · 03-01-2013, 04:30 PM

Miguel Nicolelis is an alias of The Rat King so it makes sense!

2,000 post,yay me!

*Redeemer* · 03-01-2013, 05:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MikeandRaph87

Miguel Nicolelis is an alias of The Rat King so it makes sense!

2,000 post,yay me!

congrats!!!!! But this is definitely awesome, hopefully I will soon be a able to communicate telepathically

*BubblyShell22* · 03-01-2013, 05:25 PM

Wow. That's awesome.

03-01-2013, 04:24 PM	#2
gobo Wacky Action Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: on Earth Posts: 12,784	Wow. Neat. __________________ Live and let live... or go to hell.

03-01-2013, 04:30 PM	#3
MikeandRaph87 Jedi Master Join Date: Dec 2011 Location: JLA Satellite Headquarters Posts: 11,188	Miguel Nicolelis is an alias of The Rat King so it makes sense! 2,000 post,yay me! __________________ Michelangelo: This looks like a job for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! Raphael: Sheesh, Mikey this ain't a cartoon!

03-01-2013, 05:25 PM	#5
BubblyShell22 Leo-holic Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Indiana Posts: 16,912	Wow. That's awesome. __________________ "A warrior who never fails, never learns."-The Ancient One. "Embrace your inner a**holiness."-Mr. Anderson.