The Silicon Review - Best Business Review Magazine 10 Best IT Services Companies 2019 | Page 32

Mind Controlled Rat Cyborgs Are Now
R
obots were conceived as a
means to enable humans to
work harder, better and faster.
Machines have brought us our way
of life. As computing systems grew
ever more powerful, machines also
kept getting better and better. We
now have autonomous robots that
can carry out certain tasks with
little or no human intervention.
Most electronic devices require
some kind of physical interface
with which users can control
them. It could be a console, remote
control or even a mobile phone
application. However advanced or
sophisticated a robot may get, it
still needs a physical interface to be
operable. But now, researchers from
China may have found a means of
interacting with robots that needs
nothing but thoughts.
Sounds like something from a
science fiction movie, but it isn’t. It
is real.
The scientists are from the Zhejiang
University in China and what
they have created is theoretically
applicable for cyborgs – half
animal half robot. It is achieved by
implanting an electronic device into
the brain of an animal, and in this
case it is a rat. The Chinese scientists
successfully created rat cyborgs. The
concept, however novel it may seem
is actually real and the scientists
have made the rats accomplish a
series of fairly complicated tasks
successfully with nothing but the
power of their thoughts.
The rats were all implanted with
Brain-Brain Interfaces (BBI).
Furthermore, the BBIs themselves
are built by joining together brain-
machine interfaces (BMI). BMIs
have existed for a few years now,
but they were created for altogether
different purposes. They allow
patients to interface with their
prosthetics and get used to the
feeling of ceramics attached to their
body. It is a great way for people
to familiarize themselves with and
control something that was not a
part of their body. When people
think of movement, the electrical
signals produced by the thoughts
are translated into mechanical
movement in the prosthetics.
This system can also be applied in
reverse.
Instead of an animal brain sending
signals to control a device, an
implanted device can receive
instructions and translate it into
electrical signals that can be
interpreted by the brain. In short,
through a BMI that is configured
for interpretation of signals to the
brain, scientists can make an animal
follow their instructions.
The experiment went about
like this: The rats would have
electrodes implanted in their
brains. The person controlling them
consciously has thoughts about
movement that are picked up by an
electroencephalograph (EEG), which
in turn sends them to a computer
which then adequately interprets