The University of California, Berkeley researchers have developed a new technology that can read and write brain activities.
Do you remember the iconic hologram scene that Princess Leia wanted to help Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars' first film? A similar technology can change our lives in the real world one day, with some brain manipulation.
Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, who are busy exploring ways to reflect direct holographic images on a brain, can both read and stimulate neural activities. These results can provide the same stimulation or repression of thousands of neurons one day in the future. In fact, by copying real brain activities, the brain can feel something, be seen, or be fooled as if it is not. Just like Matrix or Inception.
Hillel Adesnik, a lecturer from the authors of the research, introduces the study as follows:
"We have developed a system that can both read and write brain activity using laser light. The goal of this technology is to measure the activities of healthy and diseased brains, correcting abnormal activities in real time and treating many neurological diseases. "
The holographic projection technology used in the research makes it possible to convert the laser beam into the desired shape by viewing the negative function of an LCD screen. Later, 40 Watt laser beams are sent to the target at 300 femtoseconds per microsecond. The researchers' goal is to move this speed to a level that can simulate normal firing rates in the brain cortex.
Until now, this technique has been successfully used in a half-millimeter square area on the mouse brain. Researchers think this scale can be improved. If they can succeed, the results can create extraordinary opportunities.
Adesnik says that in the future, this system will be able to detect the problematic area quickly in neurological diseases such as epilepsy and schizophrenia, and correct the activities that make up it. However, the use of this technology is not limited to neurological diseases:
"This technology can also be used for neural prostheses. Patients who have lost their retinas or other sensory organs can acquire the ability to see them again with this system. In principle, image data from a camera mounted on the head can be artificially imitated by someone who is blind by writing directly to the brain after a certain transformation. "
With this technology, Adesnik says that researchers can develop new ways of controlling intelligent prostheses, such as robotic arms.