Crazy Brain Implants Give Lab Rats a Sixth Sense and Let Them “Touch” Light

It ’s not every 24-hour interval that science and crazy nous implant lead to the coevals of what is essentially a new sense , but it is that solar day today . Scientists from Duke University have found a way to make rats“feel ” invisible infrared lightand someday that same technical school could give sight to the blind , or give us human being supernumerary senses for fun .

In the experimentation issue inNature , git were first taught to answer to one of three normal , visible lights by sticking their noses into a little port that corresponded with the well-lighted spark . Then , the researchers implanted small , infrared - discover microelectrodes — each roughly a ten percent of the diameter of a human whisker — into the part of the mice ’s brains that parse touch . decent after the implantation , the mice reacted to infrared stimulus by itch their faces , signal that they were “ feeling ” the light , but eventually they learned to answer to it exactly how they ’d respond to the seeable lights in earlier test . Something cognate to “ run into ” it or “ feeling ” it but not quite either .

Aside from giving the mice a literal ( and amazing ) 6th sense — the first fourth dimension a brain - machine port has been capable to do that in adult animals , grant to researchers — this kind of implantation could be used to restore something like sight to blind people who have problems with their ocular cerebral cortex . While their brain may never be able to process sight like a normal person , implant in another , still - work part of the psyche could create something functionally similar , whether it ’s reliant on infrared light , magnetic fields , or something else solely . And hey , if we ever desire superpowers , this is a decent place to come out . [ BBC ]

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