• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Magnetogenetics: Is This World-First Technology Really “Mind Control”?

July 22, 2024 by Deborah Bloomfield

To understand how the brain works scientists have been using two broad categories of experiments: ones that record and ones that manipulate brain activity. Early neuroscience studies used electricity to change the activity of neurons. Then, just two decades ago, scientists developed new technologies that used light. Now, they are using magnets. 

Advertisement

Does it sound like mind control? Yes, it does. Brain stimulation technologies, magnetogenetics included, have allowed scientists to influence the behavior of animals. But no, you are not at risk of being unwittingly influenced. The technology relies on magnetic nanoparticles in the brain and close-range magnetic fields.

How this new technology works is actually really cool. It combines a mechanosensitive protein called Piezo with a magnetic nanoparticle (it’s 200 nanometers in size! That’s 0.0002 millimeters). Piezo (meaning pressure in Greek) is a well-known channel protein that, when mechanically stimulated, can activate a cell. It’s what gives you the sense of light touch. 

A rotating magnetic field moves the magnetic nanoparticles. This generates torque (rotational force) that can mechanically stimulate the Piezo channels. The nanoparticles only activate the Piezo variant that scientists have delivered to a cell, not native Piezo proteins.

Seo-Hyun Choi and colleagues were able to deliver the protein and nanoparticle to specific subgroups of cells in the brains of mice. When the mice were surrounded by a magnetic field, those cells would be activated. Depending on the targeted cells, this could make the mice eat more, or be more attentive parents.

diagram of the nano-MIND technology; a brain is depicted surrounded by a magnetic field created by two magnets linked to a computer-based controller; green, red and blue lines show how different neural circuits are affected and the knock-on behavioural impacts on mice (increased sociality, emotion and motivation)

How the team’s magnetogenetics system works.

Image credit: Institute for Basic Science

It sounds a bit Frankenstein-y, but this technology will allow scientists to manipulate with high temporal precision the brain activity in animals without the presence of any head-mounted devices. 

Advertisement

Previous technologies using light or electricity always required a cable or device to be attached to the skull of the animal to deliver the stimulus. With magnetogenetics the animals’ behavior will be completely unimpeded, improving their welfare. This will also facilitate the study of the behavior of multiple animals together in social experiments as they will be freer to interact together. 

Could this technology be used in humans? Not anytime soon. However, stimulation of brain circuits in humans is already being done. Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a powerful therapy for Parkinson’s disease that uses electrical stimulation of dopaminergic neurons. In the future, magnetogenetics could provide an alternative method for targeted stimulation of neurons to alleviate the symptoms of such disorders.

As senior author Cheon Jinwoo said in a statement, “We expect it to be widely used in research to understand brain functions, sophisticated artificial neural networks, two-way BCI [brain-computer interface] technologies, and new treatments for neurological disorders.”

This study is published in Nature Nanotechnology.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. China vehicle sales slid 18% in August – industry body
  2. Fed’s Powell: Reopening economic bottlenecks could be “more enduring”
  3. The World’s Oldest Bottle Of Wine Might Actually Be Safe To Drink
  4. How Coffee Could Protect Against Alzheimer’s: Espresso Found To Inhibit Tau Proteins

Source Link: Magnetogenetics: Is This World-First Technology Really "Mind Control"?

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • Polar Vortex Patterns Explain Winter Cold Snaps Against Background Warming Trend
  • Scientists Tracked An Olm For 2,569 Days And It Did Not Move An Inch
  • Look Out For “Fireballs”: The Best Meteor Shower Of 2025 Is About To Commence, According To NASA
  • Why Do Many Large Language Models Give The Same Answer To This “Random” Number Query?
  • Adidas Jabulani: The World Cup Football So Bad NASA Decided To Study It
  • Beluga Whales Shake Their Blob-Like Melons To Say Hello And Even Woo A Mate, But How?
  • Gravitational Wave Detected From Largest Black Hole Merger Yet: “It Presents A Real Challenge To Our Understanding Of Black Hole Formation”
  • At Over 100 Years Of Age, The World’s Oldest Elephant Passes Away In India
  • Ancient Human DNA Reveals Earliest Zoonotic Diseases Appeared 6,500 Years Ago
  • Boys Are Better At Math? That Could Be Because School Favors Them Over Girls
  • Looptail G: Most People Can’t Recognize A Letter You Have Seen Millions Of Times
  • 24-Million-Year-Old Protein Fragments Are Oldest Ever Recovered, A Robot Listened To Spoken Instructions And Performed Surgery, And Much More This Week
  • DNA From Greenland Sled Dogs – Maybe The World’s Oldest Breed – Reveals 1,000 Years Of Arctic History
  • Why Doesn’t Moonrise Shift By The Same Amount Each Night?
  • Moa De-Extinction, Fashionable Chimps, And Robot Surgery – No Human Required
  • “Human”: Powerful New Images Mark The Most Scientifically Accurate “Hyper-Real 3D Models Of Human Species Ever”
  • Did We Accidentally Leave Life On The Moon In 2019 – And Could We Revive It?
  • 1.8 Million Years Ago, Two Extinct Humans Had One Of The Gnarliest Deaths In History
  • “Powerful Image” Of One Of The World’s Rarest Tigers Exposes The Real Danger In Taman Negara
  • Evolution, Domestication, And A Lot Of Very Good Boys: How Wolves Became Dogs
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version