Tuesday, May 26, 2020

Don't tell your paranoid friend...

A paper that has recently appeared in Science Advances doesn't seem to yet have had the publicity in the media that I thought it might get:

Remote, brain region–specific control of choice behavior with ultrasonic waves

The abstract:
The ability to modulate neural activity in specific brain circuits remotely and systematically could revolutionize studies of brain function and treatments of brain disorders. Sound waves of high frequencies (ultrasound) have shown promise in this respect, combining the ability to modulate neuronal activity with sharp spatial focus. Here, we show that the approach can have potent effects on choice behavior. Brief, low-intensity ultrasound pulses delivered noninvasively into specific brain regions of macaque monkeys influenced their decisions regarding which target to choose. The effects were substantial, leading to around a 2:1 bias in choices compared to the default balanced proportion. The effect presence and polarity was controlled by the specific target region. These results represent a critical step towards the ability to influence choice behavior noninvasively, enabling systematic investigations and treatments of brain circuits underlying disorders of choice.

1 comment:

GMB said...

In audio engineering if you wanted all the women to get seduced you'd put out 17 hertz. And if you wanted fights to break out in the crowd .... I don't know the exact frequency but its something like 27,000 hertz.