WERE NEXT!!! Brain Probes Give Rats Their Marching Orders

LAtimes.com ^ | May 2, 2002 | By ROBERT LEE HOTZ, Times Staff Writer

[sonserae]

Transmitting wireless signals directly into the brain, a group of scientists has produced the ultimate lab rat--an animal that can be guided by remote control over fences, up trees, through pipe and across rubble at distances up to a third of a mile.

[sonserae]

This is VERY scary!!!!!!

[sonserae]

bump again.

[Registered]

What's the alarm? I've had one of these installed in my pet rat for years. It was hard following the instructions, but after a little pushing and jabbing the unit worked fine. Want me to have him do a somersault for ya?

[SR71A]

It looks like the tin-foil hat types are going to have the last laugh on this one.

[Saundra Duffy]

Poor little rats.

[LarryLied]

Last night AP ran this story without mentioning the research is funded by the DoD. LA Times does credit the DoD but does not mention the money and oversight comes from DARPA and 9/11 accelerated the program.

Don't know if I buy the line the research is primarily for "finding better ways to build artificial limbs and other prosthetics that could communicate fully with nerves."

DARPA does medical stuff but that is not their main line of work.

[a history buff]

Delgado, at Yale, did the same thing, with chimps (in published data) in the 60s. Except he went for emotional control. Curiously, he traveled to Moscow, to reveal his results.

[edsheppa]

Why poor? First, no pain or even discomfort is mentioned - quite the reverse, the reinforcement is positive only. Second, they're only rats anyway.

[UCANSEE2]

So, LEO's can put a miniature camera on a rat, then march it into a location (house,warehouse,street corner) where crimes are being committed and get video evidence.

From what I understand of this technology it took experimenting and mapping to find the exact location in the brain for each probe.

This experimenting and mapping would have to be done all over for the brain of a different species (dog,cat,human).

HEY , any volunteers !

[Al B.]

Delgado also collaborated with American psychiatrists Vernon Marks and Frank Ervin, who did similar kinds of psychosurgery experiments on humans in the '70's.

Melting brain tissue in the name of "science," not just in Nazi Germany but right here in the good old USA. It never ends with these people.

[a history buff]

Bionic men still exist. (They make them.)

http://www.cyberonics.com/

[a history buff]

http://www.cyberonics.com/new_indications/depression_disclaimer.htm

[Sawdring]

So I was bored at work today and got to thinking about this story. If you combine these brain probes with human cloning maybe one could send their clone to work, receive their wage and control their clone from the comfort of their own home. I could just imagine Freepers sitting around bitching about how lazy their clone is.

[Uncle Sausage]

Can they be adapted to fit democRATS?

[Jean S]

You are so bad, stop it. LOL!

[Cvengr]

"Only last month researchers at Brown University successfully wired a monkey to a computer so its mental activity could move a cursor.....

and later hijack a fully laden truck of cheese from Wisconsin and redirect it to the Rat Lab at Brown (no doubt)!...ANd THAT's THE REST OF THE STORY...Goood Deh!

[apochromat]

Radio ad for the Washington Post played it up as promising for handicapped people.

[apochromat]

I can think of only one valid medical use for stimulating reward neurons mechanically, and this would cut into the Viagra market.