See infrared light

Scientists Gave Animals Terminator-style Infrared Vision

DailyTechInfo based on Popular Science: Researchers Give Lab Rats Terminator-Like Infrared VisionResearchers from Duke University have developed a neuroimplant that gives rodent animals the ability to perceive infrared light, a part of the electromagnetic spectrum in which all representatives of the mammalian animal family cannot see.

Naturally, laboratory rats acted as experimental animals, which were previously trained to move to certain places when light signals from LED light sources were applied. Upon completion of the training to perform these uncomplicated actions, the researchers introduced a set of stimulating electrodes connected to an infrared camera mounted on the animal's head into the part of the cerebral cortex responsible for perception.

After supplying cyborg rats with infrared vision devices, researchers began gradually replacing conventional LEDs with infrared light LEDs. At first, when the infrared LEDs were turned on, the reaction of animals was very different from the reaction that scientists expected to manifest. The animals started randomly shaking their heads and making random movements, which indicated that the signals from the infrared sensor reach the brain of the animal, which does not yet know what to do with these signals.

But after a while, about a month later, the animals' brains adapted to the additional stimulus and the animals began to react to infrared light in the same way as to light from conventional LEDs.

It should be noted that such studies are not the first conducted by scientists in this direction. A couple of years ago, scientists tried to reprogram the neurons of drosophila flies sensitive to ordinary light so that these neurons could perform a slightly different function, feel in the field of infrared light. But the last experiment with rodents showed that with the use of technical devices using electrical excitation of nerve tissues, which are neuroimplants, there is no need for genetic intervention, which allows brain tissues to perform basic and additional functions simultaneously. In other words, having received the infrared "Terminator vision", the rats were able to see in normal light.

Researchers are confident that in the future, using such neuroimplants, people or animals will be able to see magnetic and electric fields in any part of the electromagnetic spectrum. "We can create devices that are sensitive to any kind of energy and radiation," says Miguel Nicolelis, a researcher at Duke University. - "It can be magnetic fields, radio waves, ultrasound, radiation and other types of radiation. We chose infrared light because it does not have a special effect on the vital activity of the body, and cyborgs in science fiction films always have the opportunity to see in infrared light."

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru18.02.2013