Remote Control of Rats
by Animals will soon replace humans in dangerous situations or inaccessible. American researchers have managed to lead rats remotely by sending electrical impulses in the brain by remote control.
There are many places where man would find useful to send animals docile to his place to pass through the rubble of an earthquake or move into an area irradiated or contaminated with toxins such. But how to control the behavior of an animal at bay? The training takes long hours of patience. Also, researchers at NYU have they developed a radical solution by creating the first remote-controlled rats.
A funny backpack
Three electrodes were implanted in the brains of lab rats. The first is able to stimulate the reward circuit through the basal ganglia. The other two were placed so as to stimulate the right and left somatosensory cortex.These electrodes are connected to a microstimulator, itself connected to an antenna that the animal is in a backpack. Above all, are stowed two microcameras that transmit images of the landscape traversed by the animal.
A remote control with 500 m of autonomy
An operator located up to 500 m from the animal may, using a laptop, deliver electrical pulses to each of the three electrodes. After a drive of ten sessions in a maze, rats have demonstrated their ability to interpret the electrical signals sent to their left and right sensory cortex as many orders of change in direction. The pleasure center was stimulated each time the animal was following orders. Researchers were then able to direct these rats in an open and complex trajectories without any difficulty (pipe, ladders, etc..).
A new way of learning
In doing so, the researchers noticed that the stimulation of pleasure centers allowed to accelerate the progress of the animal or start his run.Moreover, this stimulation was more necessary to the success of crossing obstacles that it was more difficult. An observation that speaks volumes about the learning methods since here, the above reward and motivate the action of the animal, not the other way as usual. Moreover, this incentive system does not lose its effectiveness over time, unlike more conventional methods using a physical reward (eg food) after exercise.
Recall for the faint hearted as the brain is unaffected and that the electrical impulses are a normal operating mode of information exchange between neurons. The animal feels no pain then. As for the use that we can make these new powers … This deserves some thoughts.
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