A remote, ‘long-range’ and ‘large-volume’ mind control device has been unveiled in South Korea — with plans to use the tech for ‘non-invasive’ medical procedures.
Researchers with Korea’s Institute for Basic Science (IBS) developed the hardware, which manipulates the brain from a distance using magnetic fields, and tested the tech by inducing ‘maternal’ instincts in their female test subjects: mice.
In another test, they exposed a test group of lab mice to magnetic fields designed to reduce appetite, leading to a 10-percent loss in body-weight, or about 4.3 grams.
‘This is the world’s first technology to freely control specific brain regions using magnetic fields,’ according to the professor of chemistry and nanomedicine who helped spearhead the new effort.
A remote mind control device has been unveiled in South Korea – with plans to use the tech for ‘non-invasive’ medical procedures. In one test, researchers exposed lab mice to magnetic fields designed to reduce appetite, leading to a 10-percent loss in body-weight (4.3 grams)
That researcher, Dr Cheon Jinwoo, director of South Korea’s IBS Center for Nanomedicine said he expects the new hardware to be used for a variety of healthcare applications where he said it was sorely needed.
‘We expect it to be widely used in research to understand brain functions, sophisticated artificial neural networks, two-way brain-computer interface technologies, and new treatments for neurological disorders,’ Dr Cheon said.
But despite the science fiction quality of remote mind control, health experts noted that magnetic fields have been used successfully in medical imaging for decades.
‘The concept of using magnetic fields to manipulate biological systems is now well established,’ Dr Felix Leroy, a senior scientist at Spain’s Instituto de Neurociencias, wrote in an op-ed that accompanied the new study in Nature Nanotechnology.
‘It has been applied in various fields,’ he noted, ‘magnetic resonance imaging [MRI], transcranial magnetic stimulation, and magnetic hyperthermia for cancer treatment.’
The novelty added by South Korea’s IBS team was the genetic fabrication of specialized nanomaterials, whose role within neurons in the brain could be tuned from afar via carefully selected magnetic fields.
The technique, formally called magneto-mechanical genetics (MMG), guided Dr Cheon and his colleagues as they developed their brain-modulating technology.
In the new study, published this July in Nature Nanotechnology, the team called their invention Nano-MIND, for ‘Nano-Magnetogenetic Interface for NeuroDynamics.’
Dr Cheon Jinwoo, director of South Korea’s IBS Center for Nanomedicine, said he expects the new hardware to be used for a variety of healthcare applications where it is sorely needed. Above a diagram of the magnetic device in which the study’s lab mice were remote controlled
In the group’s test of maternal instincts, the magnetic stimulation of certain female lab rats encouraged them to locate and collect their lost rat ‘pups’ more quickly in a maze-like course. The stimulated female rats began approaching the pups faster – on average 16 seconds faster
The scientists’ designed special mice for their experiments using a gene-replacement technique known to researchers as Cre-Lox recombination.
These genetically engineered lab mice developed more magnetically sensitive ‘ion channels’ which act as gates in their neurons, or nervous system cells, allowing certain molecules and atoms to enter at certain times and certain rates.
In the group’s test of maternal instincts, the MMG stimulation of certain female lab rats encouraged them to locate and collect their lost rat ‘pups’ more quickly in a maze-like course.
The female rats stimulated by Nano-MIND began approaching the pups faster — on average 16 seconds faster — and ‘quickly retrieved all the three pups in all the trials,’ the researchers wrote.
The team also conducted a two-week experiment with control group and experimental group mice on how these genetically engineered animals would react to Nano-MIND magnetic impulses encouraging them to eat more or eat less.
The technology proved capable of encouraging the mice both to overeat and to undereat.
In the experiment in which the MMG signal was encouraged the mice to eat, their body weight increased by approximately 7.5 grams on average, meaning roughly an 18-percent gain in body-weight.
The fasting magnetic impulse led to mice losing less (10-percent loss in body weight or about 4.3 grams), but significantly did not slow down the mice or inhibit their ability to move.
‘Reduced feeding did not affect locomotion,’ they wrote, implying that the effect was purely on appetite and not otherwise handicapping the mice’s ability to operate.
The technology, Dr Cheon and his team wrote, will find its most immediate use in helping health researchers understand which parts of the brain and the rest of the neurological system are responsible for which moods and other behaviors.
But in his opinion piece on the Nano-MIND innovation and its gene-replacement aspect, Dr Leroy in Spain cautioned against rushing too soon to human testing.
‘Further studies are needed to assess potential cumulative effects, including neuroadaptation or neurotoxicity,’ Dr Leroy advised.