- South Korea unveils remote mind control device
- Uses magnetic fields for brain modulation
- Potential for non-invasive medical treatments
A remote, ‘long-range’ and ‘large-volume’ mind control gadget has been unveiled in South Korea, with ambitions to deploy the technology for ‘non-invasive’ medical treatments.
Researchers at Korea’s Institute for Basic Science (IBS) created the hardware, which uses magnetic fields to affect the brain from a distance. They tested the technology by inducing maternal instincts in female test subjects: mice.
In another experiment, scientists exposed a group of lab mice to magnetic fields meant to suppress appetite. The magnetic fields caused the mice to lose 10% of their body weight, or approximately 4.3 grams.
‘This is the world’s first technology to regulate specific brain regions using magnetic fields freely,’ according to the professor of chemistry and nanomedicine who led the new initiative.
That researcher, Dr. Cheon Jinwoo, head of South Korea’s IBS Center for Nanomedicine, expects the new hardware to be employed in a range of healthcare applications where it is required.
We anticipate it will be widely employed in research to comprehend brain processes, advanced artificial neural networks, two-way brain-computer interface technologies, and innovative treatments for neurological illnesses,’ Dr Cheon stated.
Despite the science-fiction nature of remote mind control, health experts pointed out that magnetic fields have been utilized successfully in medical imaging for years.
‘The concept of utilizing magnetic fields to affect biological systems is now well known,’ noted Dr Felix Leroy, a senior scientist at Spain’s Instituto de Neurociencias, in an op-ed published alongside the new study in Nature Nanotechnology.
‘It has been employed in numerous sectors,’ he observed, including magnetic resonance imaging [MRI], transcranial magnetic stimulation, and magnetic hyperthermia for cancer treatment.
South Korea’s IBS team recently added the genetic manufacture of specific nanoparticles, whose role within neurons in the brain could be controlled from afar using carefully selected magnetic fields.
The magneto-mechanical genetics (MMG) technique guided Dr. Cheon and his colleagues as they built brain-modulating technologies.
In a new paper published in Nature Nanotechnology in July, the scientists named their device Nano-MIND, which stands for ‘Nano-Magnetogenetic Interface for NeuroDynamics.’
The scientists created customized mice for their tests using a gene replacement procedure known as Cre-Lox recombination.
These genetically altered lab mice acquired more magnetically sensitive ‘ion channels’ that function as gates in their neurons or nervous system cells, allowing certain molecules and atoms to enter at specific times and rates.
In the group’s test of maternal instincts, MMG stimulation of specific female lab rats encouraged them to locate and gather their misplaced rat ‘pups’ faster in a maze-like course.
The female rats activated by Nano-MIND approached the pups faster — on average 16 seconds faster — and ‘immediately retrieved all three pups in all trials,’ according to the researchers.
The researchers also ran a two-week experiment with control and experimental group mice to see how these genetically modified animals would react to Nano-MIND magnetic impulses that encouraged them to eat more or less.
The system was capable of prompting mice to both overeat and undereat.
In the experiment in which the MMG signal was used to urge mice to eat, their body weight increased by about 7.5 grams, representing an 18% rise.
The fasting magnetic impulse caused mice to lose less weight (10 percent drop in body weight or around 4.3 grams), but it did not significantly impede or inhibit their ability to walk.
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‘Reduced feeding did not alter movement,’ they wrote, implying that the effect was solely on appetite and did not impair the mice’s capacity to function.
According to Dr. Cheon and his colleagues, the technology will be most helpful in assisting health researchers in determining which areas of the brain and the rest of the neurological system are responsible for specific moods and behaviors.
However, in his opinion post on the Nano-MIND breakthrough and its gene-replacement element, Dr. Leroy from Spain cautioned against rushing into human trials.
‘More research is needed to determine potential cumulative consequences, such as neuroadaptation or neurotoxicity,’ Dr. Leroy stated.
