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| The Remote Control Animals |
| Cyborgs and Medical Implants - Academia | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Monday, 01 June 2009 19:16 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Several universities are experimenting with technologies that allow researchers to control animals through electrical stimulation of the brain and muscles. Additionally, DARPA is interested in animal cyborgs that would be critical components of future surveillance programs. Note that these projects are the inverse of what we've seen with the Frankenbot, the robot controlled by a rat brain, a project covered late last year by Synthetic Thought.The first experiments involving electrical control of an animal took place in the '50s and '60s at Yale University. A Bull was implanted with an electrode which, when charged, would stop the animal in its tracks.
New Scientist describes this experiment:
José Delgado at Yale University created the first cyborg animal in the 1950s. Delgado discovered where to insert electrodes in the brains of several species, including bulls, to acquire crude control of their movement. In one dramatic demonstration in 1963, he stood in a bullring in Córdoba, Spain, as one of his cyborg bulls charged at him. With just seconds between him and a good goring, Delgado flicked a switch and the bull skidded to a halt. The following video shows Dr. Delgado’s bull as well as a cat whose emotional state is controllable through electrical stimulation of the hypothalamus:
In 2002 a team at the State University of New York Health Science center tapped into a rat’s brain, allowing the researchers to trick the rat into thinking that its whiskers were being touched. They then trained the rat to move in the direction of the sensation, which allowed them to control the rat in mock search and rescue missions.
Again, from New Scientist:
Linda Hermer-Vasquez at the University of Florida in Gainesville later joined the project to train the cyborg rat to identify specific scents, such as humans or explosives, to demonstrate that it could be used in search-and-rescue missions to find people trapped under rubble, for example, or to sniff out bombs. Birds have also been the subjects of these types of animal control experiments. Researchers at the Shadong University of Science and Technology in Qingdao, China tapped into the brains of pigeons to control their flight wirelessly using a laptop.
One of the poor birds:
 DARPA’s Hybrid Insect Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems project (HI-MEMS) is interested in the control of much smaller animals – flying insects. They want to have the ability to attach or implant tiny microphones and transmitters into the creatures so that the insects may assist in surveillance activities.
The New Scientist article explains how tiny devices are implanted in such delicate creatures:
During their development from larvae to adults, most winged insects, including moths and beetles, undergo metamorphosis in a pupa stage, during which enzymes dissolve much of the larval tissue and the insect is rebuilt. The HI-MEMS project aims to merge artificial control systems with those of the insect by inserting the devices during the pupa stage. The idea is that as new organs and tissue develop, they will create strong, stable connections between the devices and the insects' neural or muscular tissues. The control devices become part of the adult insect's body. After implantation these insects are controllable through different means. Cornell University researchers have developed a system where electrical impulses are directly applied to a moth’s wing muscles, allowing them to control the direction of the moth’s flight.
Researchers at the University of Michigan have been taking a slightly different tact with June Beetles. They have inserted electrodes into the brains of the insects and control the flapping of the insects’ wings via stimulation of neurons, rather than direct muscular simulation as is the case in the Cornell experiments. The researchers have connected a computer to the system which is used to force the insect into flight from a stationary position.
The following video shows these insects in action:
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