Harvard researchers (of course) have found a way to control neurons using lasers. Now, no conspiracies yet please, they can only do this in genetically modified nematodes so barring some Stargate type Goa’uld parasite nematode this doesn’t usher in a new mind control technique… although it would make for a good spin-off or maybe another Stargate SG-1 movie? Please?
Anyways, this technique is one of many new ways of exerting control over the brain. For instance, through the use of bacteria and algae, some found in high-alkaline, high-salt, lakes in Egypt, we can trigger the firing of certain neurons. This can cause a noted effect in the brain because specific algae react to stimulation of red or blue lights thus inhibiting the little electric sparks in our brain that keep us ticking (more-or-less like clockwork).
Another new technique, with the greatest pun in contemporary cognitive science, is the brainbow. Now, before people either (A) extend this pun to Dorothy and Yellow Brick Road songs or (B) go looking for gold remember that most people hate puns and if you make a pun about a pun you wont have any friends. That being said, this technique allows researchers to stain individual neurons different colors through the use of florescent proteins. Some, more savvy, or bored intro to biopsych students may think, “Oh, you mean like a Golgi stain?” Well, yes. A really sweet Golgi, on acid. Ok not acid but XFPs instead of Potassium dichromate.
BUT ANYWAYS. This Brainbow technique allows people to see the neurons in vivo which is a science-term for Technicolor. No, just kidding don’t say that at a party you’ll look stupid, it’s a Latin term that means “in the living”: classics rocks. The greatest thing about this technique is that it works in transgenic mice. Meaning, these mice were genetically modified after birth, not a special breed of mice that may as well be termed Peromyscus Timothylearis. Oh the pun, that hurt.
The newest technology, yes technology, to incorporate the light show of the mind is the CoLBeRT system. Yes, named after Stephen Colbert. The technology uses lasers, directed at specific neurons to control the nervous system. This can cause the organism (so far limited to nematodes) to lay eggs, speed up, stop moving, or have the feeling of touch in certain areas of the body, a sort of somatosensory manipulation of the body through light. We’ve come quite a ways since the days of Pink Floyd, or maybe not.
Evil mind control through lasers? Hardly. What might be the greatest thing about the CoLBeRT system is the fact that you can find it all online. Even some cool videos like the one below showing the ability of the CoLBeRT program to induce paralysis through inhibiting (shutting down) the nervs in the ventral nerve chord (the important one).
Read the origional article: HERE
And yet, after all of this, I still can’t watch Daily Show and Colbert Report in the UK. What is up with that?
Inducing paralysis by shutting down motor neurons in the worm's ventral nerve cord from Samuel Lab on Vimeo.
