In work published in Nature, researchers at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) describe how postmortem brain slices can be "read" to determine how a rat was trained to behave in response to specific sounds. Press release.
To do this, the team focused on how rats translate sound cues into behavior. The researchers trained rats to associate a specific tone with a reward. Changes in the tone – like the difference between a tuba and a flute – signaled the animal to look for the reward either on the left or right side of a training box.
In previous work, the team discovered that activity in specific population of neurons was crucial for animals to perform the task. This neuronal population transmitted information from one auditory brain region (the auditory cortex) to another (the auditory striatum).
In the current work, the team measured the strength of the connections between these two populations of neurons, as animals learned the task. “We found that there was a gradient in activity across the auditory striatum that corresponded to whether the animal was trained to go left or right for their reward.” explains Zador.
Based upon this information, the team reasoned that they might be able to use post mortem brain slices to “predict” (obviously, in retrospect) how these or other rats had been trained. As Zador describes, “We were amazed that in all cases, our predictions – left or right – were correct. We had deciphered a tiny piece of the neural code with which the animal encoded these memories. In essence, we could read the minds of these rats.”
(Score: 3, Funny) by wonkey_monkey on Wednesday March 04 2015, @08:07AM
...to Determine How a Mouse was Trained
...to determine how a rat was trained
And yet the technique can't distinguish between a rat and a mouse, apparently.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 3, Interesting) by kaszz on Wednesday March 04 2015, @08:27AM
Nice, now we can interrogate corpses. What could go wrong? ;)
No need to keep witnesses alive..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 04 2015, @09:04AM
Shoot to kill. Avoid the cranium.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 04 2015, @11:05AM
fringe?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday March 04 2015, @11:05AM
Not even original.
See “Neural Correlates of Interspecies Perspective Taking in the Post-Mortem Atlantic Salmon: An Argument For Proper Multiple Comparisons Correction”, Bennet et al. [scientificamerican.com]; it even won a prestigious prize.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by tathra on Wednesday March 04 2015, @05:38PM
i think this might end up saving lives. remember "Dead men tell no tales"? they do now! police/gov't thugs 'silencing' people who witness them murdering innocents or whatever can now "testify" and not only help solve their own crimes but the ones they got murdered for witnessing.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 04 2015, @05:59PM
Expect future silencing shots to be targeted at the brain. Good luck finding any information in the remaining mess.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 04 2015, @09:01AM
Reading animal brains is strictly taboo in the Culture. This research only serves to demonstrate that Earth is not a civilized planet.
(Score: 2) by Hartree on Thursday March 05 2015, @12:06AM
Hey, I'd be happy for the Culture to drop by and let us savages know some better ways of doing things.
Haven't seen much evidence of them, the UFO reports notwithstanding. ;)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 04 2015, @10:44AM
OK, so after they figured out how to read the brain content, the logical next step is to store it somewhere (like, on a computer). And then, it's obvious that if you already have the information on a computer, you might want to interact with it, in order to save yourself the tedious task of sifting through all the data and interpreting it yourself, when the uploaded data already contains all the information of how to interpret it. So upload the data into a simulated brain and interact with that simulated brain.
Voila, an uploaded mind!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 04 2015, @11:24AM
I won't upload your entire mind into the computer, I promise. I only want to upload the tip, just for a minute, just to interpret what it feels like.
(Score: 1) by rufty on Wednesday March 04 2015, @04:27PM
But my computer's already got a mouse!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by RobotMonster on Wednesday March 04 2015, @12:42PM
"I thought you said you could just read his brain electronically," protested Ford.
"Oh yes," said Frankie, "but we'd have to get it out first. It's got to be prepared."
"Treated," said Benjy.
"Diced."
(Score: 3, Informative) by Hartree on Thursday March 05 2015, @12:03AM
Granted that this is done at the micro-analysis level: But, how is this much more subtle than determining which subjects did one arm preacher curls with their left arm versus those who did them with the right by measuring the size of each of their biceps after extended training?
It tells you that they differentially developed in some way, but wouldn't let you know anything about what act/training brought the change about, save that you already knew it.