SoylentNews

Phoenix666 [soylentnews.org] writes:

For the first time, researchers have developed a microscope capable of observing -- and manipulating -- neural activity in the brains of live animals [sciencedaily.com] at the scale of a single cell with millisecond precision. By allowing scientists to directly control the firing of individual neurons within complex brain circuits, the device could ultimately revolutionize how neuroscience is done and lead to new insights about healthy brain functioning and neurological disorders.

"With this new microscope, we believe we will soon be able to treat the brain as the keyboard of a piano, so to speak, and write in a sequence of activity that is needed to understand or correct brain function," said Hillel Adesnik, Ph.D., assistant professor of neurobiology at the University of California, Berkeley, who led the research team. "After more refinements, this instrument may be able to function as a sort of Rosetta Stone to help us crack the neural code."

Original Submission