Crazy Brain Implants Give Lab Rats Sixth Sense

Crazy Brain Implants Give Lab Rats Sixth Sense


It’s not every day that science and crazy brain implants lead to the generation of what is essentially a new sense, but it is that day today. Scientists from Duke University have found a way to make rats “feel” invisible infrared light and someday that same tech could give sight to the blind, or give us humans extras senses for fun.

In the experiment published in Nature, rats were first taught to respond to one of three normal, visible lights by sticking their noses into a little port that corresponded with the illuminated light. Then, the researchers implanted small, infrared-detecting microelectrodes — each roughly a tenth of the diameter of a human hair — into the part of the mice’s brains that parses touch. Right after the implantation, the mice reacted to infrared stimulus by rubbing their faces, indicating that they were “feeling” the light, but eventually they learned to respond to it exactly how they’d responded to the visible lights in earlier tests. Something akin to “seeing” it or “feeling” it but not quite either.

Aside from giving the mice a literal (and awesome) sixth sense — the first time a brain-machine interface has been able to do that in adult animals, according to researchers — this kind of implantation could be used to restore something like sight to blind people who have problems with their visual cortex. While their brain may never be able to process sight like a normal person, implants in another, still-working part of the brain could create something functionally similar, whether it’s reliant on infrared light, magnetic fields, or something else entirely. And hey, if we ever want superpowers, this is a decent place to start. [BBC]

Picture: Vit Kovalcik/Shutterstock


The Cheapest NBN 50 Plans

It’s the most popular NBN speed in Australia for a reason. Here are the cheapest plans available.

At Gizmodo, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.