Remote Control of the Brain

Just about ten years ago, psychiatrist and bioengineer Karl Deisseroth from Stanford University, along with his team of scientists, published a groundbreaking article on optical brain control—a new method for studying the brain now known as optogenetics.

How Does Optogenetics Work?

This method involves introducing a light-sensitive protein (photoactivatable protein) into the membrane of nerve cells, or neurons, which make up our nervous system. As the name suggests, this protein is activated by light, allowing researchers to identify specific groups of neurons in the brains of humans or animals.

What does this achieve? For a long time, neurologists and neurophysiologists could only infer how the brain worked based on its general structure, a rough “map” of its nearly 80 billion neurons, and clinical cases they encountered with patients. Sometimes, symptoms like an unsteady gait or sudden loss of balance after a head injury provided the best clues for understanding how a blow to the head could affect other parts of the body. Clinical cases are also useful in studying mental illnesses. But without detailed research into the neurons themselves—which form complex, branching networks that control various bodily functions—studying the brain’s intricate activity was slow and difficult.

If researchers can highlight and closely examine specific groups of neurons, progress is much faster. And that’s not the only benefit.

“Highlighting” neurons allows scientists to study specific areas of the brain in detail.

Controlling Mouse Minds

Let’s return to Karl Deisseroth and his team. To create not just a system for detecting neurons but also for controlling them, the scientists modified mouse brain cells with rhodopsin genes found in algae. Rhodopsins use energy to allow charged ions to enter cells, and these ions can change the electrical activity of neurons, influencing the animal’s behavior.

But even these optogenetic methods weren’t enough. Optogenetics couldn’t penetrate the brain’s dense fatty tissues, making it hard to reach deep brain structures. So, the team invented “implants”—fiber optic cables that could deliver light to hard-to-reach areas and neural networks. However, this was a fairly invasive procedure, so the scientists didn’t stop there. They developed another tool that didn’t disrupt neural networks but still allowed them to manipulate the behavior of their test subjects—mice.

If you’re brave enough to face some technical jargon, here’s what American bioengineers called their new method for controlling mouse minds: DREADD (Designer Receptors Exclusively Activated by Designer Drugs). In simple terms, this technology uses synthetic receptors that are activated by a specific ligand (a designer drug). The result? Scientists can now control minds in the literal sense—from triggering hunger to inducing sleep or wakefulness.

Parkinson’s Disease Is No Obstacle!

At the University of California, a team led by another bioengineer, Anatol Kreitzer, worked with Deisseroth to see if this method could help treat Parkinson’s disease. Amazingly, they were able to first disrupt the movements of mice to mimic Parkinson’s, and then restore normal motor activity. They also proved experimentally that it’s now possible to put a mouse to sleep or wake it up without any surgery or hypnosis!

Of course, it’s not that simple. DREADD requires the administration of a drug to make the process work, so it’s not quite the “remote control” of the brain promised in the article’s title. The main drawback is the slow action of the drug, which can’t keep up with the brain’s rapid changes in activity. But in recent years, researchers have developed another technology that uses low-frequency radio waves or magnetic fields, which can also penetrate the brain without harming the test subjects. These waves heat up iron oxide nanoparticles introduced into the body and targeted to specific brain areas. Now, scientists are getting very close to true remote control of thoughts. Is this a good thing? It’s definitely something to think about.

Should Psychiatrists Look for New Jobs?

All these experiments on mouse neurons weren’t just for fun—there’s serious potential to help people recover from mental illnesses that are currently hard to treat. For now, research is focused on using these methods to eliminate depression. Who knows, maybe soon we’ll be able to cure many other mental disorders as well. It seems like it’s only a matter of time…