Friday, February 1, 2008

tiny camera inside a mouse's brain

A tiny camera was implanted inside a mouse's brain for test. Japanese researchers and scientist in Tokyo experimented it to see how memory is formed. They are anticipating to apply this to human to treat illnesses and disorders. They used roughly 0.1 inch wide (3 by 2.3 by 2.4 millimeters) special semiconductor camera inside the hippocampus of the mouse’s brain. By the way, hippocampus is part of the forebrain and plays an essential role in the formation of long term memory.The device shows blue light whenever the camera captures memory being recorded by the brain. They are planning about applying this to humans someday but it would probably take them 10 years. They are hoping that this research will show the way to treat Parkinson’s disease as they seek to have this camera trace the brain activities that cause tremors. Isn’t it interesting? To me, this research will definitely take several years. I hope they could find good results from this experiment. There are many people suffering from Parkinson’s disease. This might be a good starting point.

No comments: