WIKIPEDIA, RAMAThoughts have power—sort of. A new device uses the electric energy of a person’s brainwaves to trigger a light-emitting diode, which then remotely activates light-inducible genes in a small implant placed in mice.
The system, described in Nature Communications today (November 11), may eventually provide new gene and cell-based treatment opportunities that respond to an individual’s specific mental states. Although the contraption sounds unusual, it relies on combining two well-known technologies: optogenetics, which uses light-sensitive proteins to control gene expression, and an EEG-based brain-computer interface (BCI), which harnesses the brain’s electrical potentials to create a physical output.
“This work is pretty awesome,” said synthetic biologist Timothy Lu of MIT who was not involved with the study. “This is the first time people have gone this far with combining these technologies.”
Martin Fussenegger of ETH Zurich, who led the new research, has been working on ways to remotely control gene expression for nearly a decade. His recent work has ...
