Remote Controlled Rats

sclatter writes: "They aren't precisely robot rats, but these little rodents can be cued to perform different actions through electrodes implanted in their brains. Could be a boon for search and rescue in collapsed buildings!" As one skeptic in the article says, though, "Without the gee-whizery, without the remote-control and so on, that this kind of thing was possible has been obvious for decades."

Comments

Actually..

[Sango]

In fact I had a friend who took the brains out of crayfish, attached electrodes to the nerves and made little remote-controlled crayfish! In high school, no less...

Re:Actually..

[ZiZ]

A rat is unlikely to kill itself no matter now much you train it.

Rats are actually willing to starve themselves to receive direct-to-brain pleasure (just search for 'starvation'), so it seems likely to me that they would subject themselves to danger (including, as the article says, brightly lit environments) and potentially even death for the reward of the neural stimulation.

First rats, then people

[Dimensio]

Government mind-control implants, here we come :)

Better get your tinfoil hats ready. This time it's not just the nuts wearing them,

A Clockwork Orange

[Baldrson]

Anthony Burgess, author of the book "A Clockwork Orange" was the artist in residence while I was in the undergraduate program at the Iowa City Writer's Workshop back in 1974. I think he based his book on the work of Jose M.R. Delgado, M.D. published under the book with the damn spooky title: "Physical Control of the Mind: Toward a Psychocivilized Society".

I managed to get a copy of the book finally, and discovered wonderful passages such as the following on page 115:

ESB [electrical stimulation of the brain -- JAB] may evoke more elaborate responses. For example, in one of our patients, electrical stimulation of the rostral part of the internal capsule produced head turning and slow displacement of the body to either side with a well-oriented and apparently normal sequence, as if the patient were looking for something. This stimulation was repeated six times on two different days with comparable results. The interesting fact was that the patient considered the evoked activity spontaneous and always offered a reasonable explanation for it. When asked, "What are you doing?" the answers were, "I am looking for my slippers," "I heard a noise," "I am restless," and "I was looking under the bed." In this case it was difficult to ascertain whether the stimulation had evoked a movement which the patient tried to justify, or if an hallucination had been elicited which subsequently induced the patient to move and to explore the surroundings.

This passage is eerily reminiscent of a passage from Richard Dawkins' "The Extended Phenotype" chapter titled "Host Phenotypes of Parasite Genes":

"Many fascinating examples of parasites manipulating the behavior of their hosts can be given. For nematomorph larvae, who need to break out of their insect hosts and get into water where they live as adults, '...a major difficulty in the parasite's life is the return to water. It is, therefore, of particular interest that the parasite appears to affect the behavior of its host, and "encourages" it to return to water. The mechanism by which this is achieved is obscure, but there are sufficient isolated reports to certify that the parasite does influence its host, and often suicidally for the host... One of the more dramatic reports describes an infected bee flying over a pool and, when about six feet over it, diving straight into the water. Immediately on impact the gordian worm burst out and swam into the water, the maimed bee being left to die' (Croll 1966)."

Anyone read the Tripods trilogy?

[Arcturax]

This sounds a bit like how the caps worked to control the humans, it made them want to be slaves to the invading aliens.

I wouldn't be surprised to see some rouge government in the future attempt to make soldiers this way, they go to fight and have an electronically induced high which pumps them up and makes them feel invincible. It's a scary thought and one that may not be that far off.

It's definately weird to see so much of what was science fiction not long ago coming true in my lifetime. Granted my grandparents and even my parents saw the same thing, but it's just a pity that it more often than not is the bad things coming true for my generation. It is stuff like this that makes me lose faith in the human race all over again...

How it works

[EnglishTim]

I just saw a piece about this on BBC News 24 - and is basically works like this:

Three electrodes are put into the rat's brain. One electrode in the part of the brain that detects whisker movement for the left side and one electrode for the right. The third electrode stimulates a 'pleasure' section of the brain.

The researchers then stimulate each of the whisker electrodes and reward the rat with a burst of pleasure when it moves to that side. Soon stimulation of the whiskers can move the rat around.

Therefore, the whole rat brain is still there and working properly (it's not like it's been bypassed or anything), but when offered the chance to get a burst of pleasure the rats seem to comply almost without fail.