Neurons have changed their profession

Scientists were able to "reprogram" brain neurons

Sergey Vasiliev, Naked Science

Jose Carmena from the University of California at Berkeley and his colleagues have demonstrated new facets of the amazing plasticity of the brain. They managed to train neurons processing visual information to perform motor functions. Scientists write about this in an article published by the journal Neuron (Neely et al., Volitional Modulation of Primary Visual Cortex Activity Requires the Basal Ganglia).

In experiments on laboratory rats, the authors used the brain–computer interface. 16 microelectrodes were connected to the neurons of their primary visual cortex (V1), which recorded cell activity and transmitted this data to a computer. Depending on the received signal, he changed the pitch of the sound, so that the rats were trained to change the behavior of neurons, lowering the tone and receiving a reward for it. Such activity is normally characteristic of motor neurons, not sensory neurons.

A drawing from the UC Berkeley press release Retraining the brain's vision center to take action – VM.

Experiments have shown that such learning is determined by the behavior of neurons in the striatum deep in the nuclei of the cerebral hemispheres. Scientists controlled their activity using optogenetics, so that when illuminated with a laser, these cells did not function – and if already trained rats continued to successfully control the non-standard work of neurons in the visual cortex, then the "novices" did not develop these new skills.

"Experiments have demonstrated that the striatum allows the body to control the activity of other areas of the brain," says Rui Costa, one of the authors of the work, "even when it comes to primary sensory areas, such as the visual cortex."

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