 |
Implanted Memories Provide Songs To Birds
Ordinarily, it takes a lot of repetition from a father finch to give the baby finch enough to start practicing on their own. They learn to replicate the behavior after practicing tens of thousands of times.
There is a quicker way.
By controlling the interaction between two regions of the brain, Dr. Roberts’ team encoded memories in zebra finches that had no tutoring experience from their fathers. The birds used these memories to learn syllables of their song, with the duration of each note corresponding to the amount of time the light kept the neurons active. The shorter the light exposure, the shorter the note.“We’re not teaching the bird everything it needs to know – just the duration of syllables in its song,” Dr. Roberts said. “The two brain regions we tested in this study represent just one piece of the puzzle.”
His team found some of those answers by testing connections between sensory motor areas of the brain. Specifically, researchers used optogenetics to manipulate neuron activity in the NIf brain region and to control the information it sends to the HVC, another brain area implicated in learning from auditory experience.
In his lyrical short story The Preserving Machine, Philip K. Dick describes a machine that can preserve music in the form of animals. He writes that the Mozart G-Minor Quintet came out as a bird "slow and slender with the flowing plumage of a peacock."
Phil DIck fans also know that he described the idea of implanted or "extra-factual memories in his wonderful 1966 story We Can Remember It For You Wholesale.
Via UT Southwestern.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 10/1/2019)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )
Related News Stories - (" Culture ")
Science Fiction Helps Young Readers Build Resiliency
'Reading science fiction and fantasy can help readers make sense of the world.'
Unwanted Cruise Ships Huddle Together Out At Sea
'On the screen they passed in an endless, boundaryless flood of green specks...' - James Blish, 1957.
News Mood Filter Web Extension
'He adjusted the n, the r and b knobs, and hopefully anticipated a turn for the better...'
Maybe We Could Hibernate Until The Covid-19 Pandemic's End
'Cold-rest was a common last resort therapy for functional psychoses.' - Robert Heinlein, 1941.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Current News
TytoCare Offers Futuristic Home Care
'Immediately an enormous apparatus fell on to her out of the ceiling...'
Powdered Regolith Propulsion
'... filling their great tanks with the finely divided dust which the ionic rockets would spit out in electrified jets.'
Ford's SafeCap, Opposite Of Niven and Barnes' Napcap
'In the napcap a client became an instant yoga master...'
Would You Get 'Chipped'? Michigan May Ban Employers
'Employees above a certain level were implanted with advanced microprocessors...'
Tesla Autopilot: What Does An Autonomous Car See When It Looks At The Road?
'Jeremiah is a sports-model to begin with and that kind is awfully hot-tempered.'
DNA Controls Swarms Of Molecular Robots
'They exist in loose swarms...'
Tether Asteroids To Save Us All
'If anything can glue the asteroids back into the planet they once were, magnology will do it.'
Blaux Your Personal Commuter Cooling Unit
A cooling unit had to be strapped to every commuter's back, by law.
3D Printed Damascus Steel Now Possible
'...lined with durite, that strange close-packed laboratory product.'
R9X Hellfire Missile With Long Blades Kills Queda Leader
'He was still roaring when the knife missile flicked past him...'
Would You Swallow An Origami Robot?
'Swallow it in an emergency--it goes down easily and works just as well inside as outside.'
Perhaps You Might Be Interested In Habitable Exoplanet Moon Real Estate
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...
Blurry Face Photos Made 60 Times Sharper
Perfect tool for blade runners.
SpaceX Will Build Floating Spaceports!
'...a single perfectly level platform, which rose so high above the water that it was not splashed by the waves.'
Fast Radio Bursts And Space Beacons For Interstellar Navigation
'Every beacon has a code signal as part of its radiation...'
Robot Garbage Trucks Visualized
'It was a bulky, shining cylinder over twenty metres long.'
