Brainwashing
A new wireless implant monitors the behavior of laboratory animals
Sergey Vasiliev, Naked Science
A group of scientists from the American Northwestern University has developed a superminiature wireless device for implantation into the brain of laboratory rodents and conducted successful experiments with it. At the same time, the membranes of neurons in experimental animals were genetically modified and contained proteins that fire in response to irradiation with light of a certain wavelength. This method of activating neural connections is called optogenetics and is used in brain research.
The new device is quite small, does not require a wired connection and does not interfere at all with mice in movements and ordinary life, allowing them to be observed in natural conditions. During the experiments, scientists turned on the implant via a wireless interface, and it instantly triggered the prosocial, friendly behavior of mice or "turned it off". Yevgenia Kozorovitsky and her colleagues write about this in an article published in the journal Nature Neuroscience (Yang et al., Wireless multilateral devices for optogenetic studies of individual and social behaviors).
"Previous technologies did not allow us to observe social interactions between animals in difficult conditions, because they were connected," emphasizes Professor Kozorovitsky. – The fiber easily broke or entangled them. So to answer difficult questions about animal behavior, the use of innovative wireless technologies was required."
In fact, the use of optogenetics methods usually requires some way of applying laser radiation to the desired group of brain cells. To do this, a hole is made in the skull, where an optical fiber is supplied, and then, turning on or off the laser, the behavior of the GM animal is monitored, studying the manifestations of the activity of the corresponding neurons. However, when experimenting with a group of animals, a "bush" of wires sticking out of the head does not allow them to interact normally with each other.
That is why a team of neuroscientists led by Evgenia Kozorovitski, together with electrical engineers from the group of Professor John Rogers, developed a miniature optogenetic implant without wires. It is attached to the surface of the skull and, with a thickness of about 0.5 millimeters, is almost invisible in the hair on the rodent's head. At the same time, the thinnest filaments of optical fiber from the inner surface of the plate go under the skull and can activate target neurons. Even it receives energy through a wireless antenna, from a "charger" located directly at the cage where the animals are kept.
To demonstrate the capabilities of the new technology, Kozorowitski and her colleagues conducted experiments with pairs and groups of laboratory GM mice. Using a laser, scientists remotely synchronized the activity of neurons in the medial prefrontal cortex (MPC). This area of the brain plays an important role in the realization of higher functions, including in social behavior. Indeed, the artificial synchronization of the activity of MPC in animals led to the fact that they sought to interact with each other, and desynchronization caused the opposite effect, forcing them to diverge.
You can see how this happens in the press release of the Implanted wireless device triggers mice to form instant bond - VM.
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