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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

Researchers compared the maze navigation ability of rats, rats implanted with a wireless microstimulator, and a simple maze solving algorithm [kurzweilai.net]:

Rat cyborgs: The rats were implanted with a wireless microstimulator mounted on the back of the rat to deliver electric stimuli via microelectrodes into their somatosensory cortex and medial forebrain bundle, which releases dopamine to the nucleus accumbens and is a key node of the brain's reward system. The computer tracked the rats, analyzed the explored maze information, and decided when and how to intervene when the rats needed help in traversing unique paths and avoiding dead ends and loops (by stimulating the rats' left and right somatosensory cortex to prompt them to move left or right).

Performance of the rats, computer and rat-cyborgs were compared by evaluating how many times they visited the same location (steps), how many locations they visited, and total time spent to reach the target. Although the cyborgs and computers took roughly the same number of steps, the cyborgs took fewer than the rats, a sign of more efficient problem solving. The cyborgs also visited fewer locations than computers or rats, and took less time than the rats to solve the mazes.*

The researchers suggest that the experiment shows that optimal intelligence may reside in the integration of animals and computers.

In future work, the researchers plan to introduce more tasks and the complexity of tasks will be quantified. "To avoid excessive intervention with the rats, the strength of the computer's assistance will be graded," the authors say in the paper. "In addition, more practical rat cyborgs will be investigated: the web camera will be replaced by sensors mounted on rats, such as tiny camera, ultrasonic sensors, infrared sensors, electric compass, and so on, to perceive the real unknown environment in real time; and the computer-aided algorithms can be housed on a wireless backpack stimulator instead of in the computer."

Intelligence-Augmented Rat Cyborgs in Maze Solving [plos.org] (open, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0147754)

Original Submission