These guys are, like, totally on the same wavelength.
(Credit: Screenshot by Eric Mack/CNET)
There is officially a Wachowski Brothers-style “Matrix” for rodents.
Scientists in North Carolina and Brazil have connected the brains of two rats using “brain-to-brain interfaces” that can connect directly or via the Internet. These allow the rodents to share sensory information, collaborate on tasks to earn rewards, and fight back against the shadowy and cyber-apocalyptic forces that have enslaved them.
There’s actually no evidence of the latter, but I’d still suggest researchers watch out for any rats that start displaying a propensity for martial arts.
Hollywood franchises aside for a moment, the experiment was conducted by basically training one “encoder” rat in a lab to press a certain lever (represented by a certain color) to earn a food pellet as a reward. A copy of the brain activity behind that behavioral decision was then translated into a pattern of electrical stimulation that could be transported directly to another “decoder” rat’s brain. That decoder rat was then able to press the same correct lever and receive its reward 70 percent of the time without undergoing the same training or receiving any other visual cues about which lever to select.
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