Scientists can now inspire monkeys to think directly into the brain.

This discovery is supposed to be used to help stroke patients.



Have you ever thought about how your brain plans actions depending on what you see and hear? We take a huge amount of sensory information every second of our lives, and our brains process all this information and choose further actions. All this is connected with complex interactions between the sensory areas of our brain and the area of ​​the brain called the “premotor cortex” (This is a section of Brodman’s cytoarchitectonic field 6 ).



A group of scientists recently figured out how to get around this interaction and transmit signals directly to the premotor cortex.

When our eyes see something, this information goes directly through the optic nerve into the visual cortex. From there, the signals enter the premotor cortex, which will determine how you respond to it.



A group of scientists from the University of Rochester set themselves the task of transmitting signals directly to the premotor cortex . If they could understand how to bypass the visual component, medical scientists could help people suffering from injuries and other brain damage that could destroy parts of the visual cortex or the connection between the visual and premotor cortex.



In a new study published in the journal Neuron, researchers finally achieved success in experiments on rhesus monkeys. In their study, scientists implanted electrodes to two monkeys.



Having trained the monkeys to pull the lever, press the button or rotate the handle, having seen the corresponding LEDs, the researchers replaced the light signals with a direct effect on the premotor cortex directly from the electrodes. They found that monkeys can be forced to perform the right task even without a visual signal, directly stimulating the premotor cortex.



This experiment is primitive, but in the future, you can send signals using clusters of thousands of electrodes, which will allow you to transfer more complex images. This technology will be able to help people with impaired eye nerves and the primary visual cortex.