Xenopus laevis tadpole with an extra eye grafted onto its tail.Douglas BlackistonBlind tadpoles can be gifted with sight from grafted eye tissue—even when that tissue is put in their tails. In new research published today (February 27) in The Journal of Experimental Biology, researchers at Tufts University showed that eyes grafted onto tadpole tails allowed the amphibians to learn the difference between two colors of light—even though the new eyes’ nerves don’t reach the brain.
The research shows that “animals are very adaptive beyond what we thought before,” said Josh Bongard, a roboticist at the University of Vermont who was not involved in the research. The findings could help inspire “flexible” robots that easily adapt to new inputs, immediately taking advantage of information from a new camera that wasn’t included in the robot’s original design, for example.
The findings may also have implications for designing functional artificial or regenerated limbs and organs, noted Günther Zupanc, a neurobiologist at Northeastern University, who also did not participate in the study. “If they don’t connect to the brain, they’re useless,” Zupanc explained. The new research provides clues about “what kind of instructions we need to provide to the body” to make that connection.
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