Researchers can now activate individual neurons in mice’s brains to change their behaviour.
According to Nature.com, researchers at at Stanford University, California, specially bred the mice with light sensitive neurons in the orbitofrontal cortex, the part of the brain that is associated with perceiving and reacting to rewards.
By shining a laser at specific neurons, they could control how fast the mice consumed a high-calorie milkshake.
This could lead to breakthroughs in treating addiction or PTSD, Nature reports.
Unfortunately it currently requires a very high degree of precision – in some cases it only takes one neuron to change a mouse’s behaviour, so scientists have to be able to reliably hit the specific cell they’re aiming at for this to work.
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