Brain Implant Restores Decision Making In Drugged Monkeys | 80beats

Neuroscientists have made a brain implant that restored decision-making ability in laboratory monkeys whose faculties had been experimentally addled by cocaine. Eventually, researchers hope, such prostheses could boost cognitive abilities of brain-damaged patients.

In this experiment, five rhesus monkeys were wired up with an implant that tapped into two areas of the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain credited with such functions as thinking and planning, that communicate during decision making. First, the researchers used the implant to record electrical signals that those neurons sent when the monkey was making...

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Published By: Discover - Tuesday, 18 September