This is your brain on smartphones
Hey. Hey, you. Do you want some scientists to install a small device in your brain that uses light and drugs to control your neurons and can be controlled externally by a smartphone? No?
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Sounds like a terrible idea only fit for a cheesy science fiction dystopia, you say? Too bad, because a group of researchers from South Korea and the University of Colorado already have invented such a device.
To be fair, their study, published in Nature Biomedical Engineering, is relatively free of nefariousness. The device is meant to be used to search for brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, as well as disorders such as depression, addiction, and pain.
The researchers say that their device is superior to current diagnostic technology available – which uses a similar drug/light combo but is bulkier, stationary, and causes long-term brain damage – because it can be used long term and outside the lab and – we’re sorry – but we’re straying back into dystopia here.
Okay, let’s try again. To test their device, the researchers conducted an animal study and found that, by manipulating the behavior of one animal using the drug/light combo from behind their smartphones, they could influence the behavior of the entire group.
Did we say that the study was relatively free of nefariousness? Sorry about that. At this point, we wouldn’t be surprised if the whole thing was bankrolled by a couple of genetically engineered lab mice from Acme Labs bent on world domination.
