A new brain implant doesn’t restore sight in blind rats, but it does something a whole lot weirder: give the rat the extra sense of geomagnetism. It could one day be a new way to navigate for blind people–or heck, even healthy people hankering for a sixth sense.
In the study published in Current Biology, scientists in Japan put a chip that could sense north and south inside the brains of rats. The rats also got two electrodes implanted in the visual cortex of the brains. If its head faced roughly north, the electrodes stimulated the right visual cortex. If south, then the left visual cortex.
Essentially, the rat can “see” which direction it’s facing without really, erh, seeing anything through its eyes. It was probably disorientating at first, but after two days and 60 trials, the blind rats could navigate a maze just as well as rats with sight. With the implants removed, they were lost again.
via Gizmodo
April 3, 2015
One thought on “A magnetic brain implant lets blind rats see without seeing”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
featured blogs
Nov 22, 2024
We're providing every session and keynote from Works With 2024 on-demand. It's the only place wireless IoT developers can access hands-on training for free....
Nov 22, 2024
I just saw a video on YouTube'it's a few very funny minutes from a show by an engineer who transitioned into being a comedian...
Instead of Rats, please start using politicians( either party )!!!