I've got an article in tomorrow's New York Times about a startling new way to control the nervous system of animals. Scientists at Yale have genetically engineered flies with neurons that grow light-sensitive triggers. Shine a UV laser at the flies, and the neurons switch on. In one experiment, the scientists were able to make decapitated flies leap into the air by triggering escape-response neurons. In another, they put the trigger in dopamine-producing neurons, and the flash sent healthy flies walking madly around their dish. (You can read the paper for free at Cell's web site.)
In working on this story, I was reminded of the research being done now with implanted electrodes, which I wrote about last year in Popular Science. Much of this research focuses on listening in on neurons to control robots or computers. But the electrodes have also been used to send electricity into the brain ...
