Otherways- Fiction Fanatics

Mind control. From the brain slugs infesting humans in K.A. Applegate’s Animorph’s series, to Professor X’s psychic ability to control minds, to the brainwashing and imprinting of Joss Whedon’s Doll House series, mind control is scary stuff.

The truth is, no matter what the cosmetics companies say, it isn’t our body or our face that defines us. It’s our mind. How we think, what we remember, that’s what determines how we act. That, in turn, makes us who we are. In real life, this is the tragedy of Alzheimer’s, where it robs a family of their loved one while their body still lives. This unique amalgamation of experiences, thoughts, and ideas is the one thing that is completely ours, the one thing that we think can’t be taken away from us.

I hate to say it, but we’re now one step closer to no longer being safe in our own heads. I have to admit, the tech is pretty darn cool, and it will probably have some very useful applications. You see, scientists can now remotely control a mouse using a newly developed brain probe. The implant, made of soft materials, is only about a tenth as wide as one of the hairs on your head. It is capable of delivering both light and drugs simultaneously, and was designed as a replacement for the more bulky ports we’re familiar with.

The device was designed and built by Jae-Woong Jeong, Ph.D., and graduate student Jordan G. McCall. Their results are available in the technical journal Cell, if you are interested in the long form.

As might be expected, they aren’t yet to the controlling super soldiers stage, or even capable of rewriting a mouse’s personality. That will probably be next week, knowing how fast science can progress. What they can do now, however is control some of the basic behaviors of mice using injected drugs or light, from a distance of about 3 feet away. The device can also hold four drugs at the moment, rendering it capable of producing more than one effect at a time.

Even weirder, they can use it to inject certain viruses into the brain to aid in the process of mapping brain function. Normally, viruses can’t access the brain directly because mother nature pretty much figures you need your brain to keep living, so we have this handy blood-brain barrier to prevent just such an event. These specific viruses do not cause disease, but they do tag brain cells with a genetic “dye”.

For those of us still creating the fictional future rather than the actual one, I’d say that’s some grist for a short story, or even a novel. It’s also another way that I see fiction writers as creating the real world far before even the scientists get around to it. Whether this is good or bad, only time and use will tell, but the biggest obstacle to achieving anything is in simply believing that it is possible. Star Trek’s communicators became cell phones, hundreds of space adventure novels later, we have a probe flying past Pluto.

It is certainly a Brave New World, is it not?

Cheers,

Michelle