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Scientists Restore Lost Brain Function In Rat With Synthetic Device

Posted by Soulskill on from the but-will-he-ever-play-the-guitar-again dept.

V!NCENT writes with news that researchers at Tel Aviv University have replaced a synaptic microcircuit inside a rat's cerebellum with a fully synthetic version, while maintaining proper functioning. The targeted area of the rat's brain involved its ability to blink its eyes in response to particular stimuli. "To test the chip, they anesthetized a rat and disabled its cerebellum before hooking up their synthetic version. They then tried to teach the anesthetized animal a conditioned motor reflex — a blink — by combining an auditory tone with a puff of air on the eye, until the animal blinked on hearing the tone alone. They first tried this without the chip connected, and found the rat was unable to learn the motor reflex. But once the artificial cerebellum was connected, the rat behaved as a normal animal would, learning to connect the sound with the need to blink." Study author Matti Mintz said of the work, "It's proof of concept that we can record information from the brain, analyze it in a way similar to the biological network, and return it to the brain."

6 of 75 comments (clear)

  1. Why? by catbutt · · Score: 5, Funny

    I mean, rat's are cheap. If its brain functions are going bad, get a new rat. This is what is wrong with science, they have no clue as to real world problems.

    Geez.

  2. heralding the singularity... by Hazel+Bergeron · · Score: 2

    ...and the AI sufficiently advanced to consider us as rats and do the same thing to us.

  3. Re:at last.. by imamac · · Score: 2

    Because living within your means shows a clear lack of brain function...

  4. Re:If it works on humans by gmhowell · · Score: 2

    I actually have mod points right now, but I can't find the one to mark you "+1 Recursive".

    Find the choice marked "+1 Recursive" and then start looking from there.

    --
    Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
  5. Re:Stunned Silence by narcc · · Score: 2

    How about

    f. This is about as exciting as a pacemaker.

    There are two dominant kinds of uninformed posts here: those suggesting that we've somehow read a chunk of brain like a hard disk, and those rambling on about the "singularity".

    If anything, the lack of comments suggests that slashdot has not yet been completely overrun by the terminally uninformed.

    --
    Required reading for internet skeptics
  6. First thing the rat said by kikito · · Score: 2

    "I never asked for this".