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Researchers have used CRISPR—a revolutionary new genetic engineering technique—to convert cells isolated from mouse connective tissue directly into neuronal cells.

In 2006, Shinya Yamanaka, a professor at the Institute for Frontier Medical Sciences at Kyoto University at the time, discovered how to revert adult , called fibroblasts, back into immature stem cells that could differentiate into any cell type. These so-called induced won Yamanaka the Nobel Prize in medicine just six years later for their promise in research and medicine.

Since then, researchers have discovered other ways to convert cells between different types. This is mostly done by introducing many of “master switch” genes that produce proteins that turn on entire genetic networks responsible for producing a particular cell type.

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Mirror neurons allow individuals to, in essence, feel what others are experiencing. These neurons fire when an individual experiences something and when they observe the same or similar act happen to another.

Synesthesia, a neurological trait with more than 80 forms and growing numbers of people who recognize it in themselves, is mostly associated with famous creatives who have possessed it–from Pharrell Williams to David Hockney and from Mary J. Blige to Marilyn Monroe.

In essence, synesthesia is “bonus senses.” In short, people with synesthesia can hear colors or see sounds.

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I know so many people who will benefit from this.


During the 2014 FIFA World Cup opening ceremony, a young Brazilian man, paralyzed from the chest down, delivered the opening kickoff. He used a brain-machine interface, allowing him to control the movements of a lower-limb robotic exoskeleton.

This unprecedented scientific demonstration was the work of the Walk Again Project (WAP), a nonprofit, international research consortium that includes Alan Rudolph, vice president for research at Colorado State University, who is also an adjunct faculty member at Duke University’s Center for Neuroengineering.

Barely two years after the demonstration, the WAP has released its first clinical report, published Aug. 11 in Scientific Reports. They report that a group of patients who trained throughout 2014 with the WAP’s brain-controlled system, including a motorized exoskeleton, have regained the ability to voluntarily move their leg muscles and to feel touch and pain in their paralyzed limbs. This, despite being originally diagnosed as having a clinically complete spinal cord injury — in some cases more than a decade earlier.

Controlling the minds of others from a distance has long been a favourite science fiction theme – but recent advances in genetics and neuroscience suggest that we might soon have that power for real. Just over a decade ago, the bioengineer Karl Deisseroth and his colleagues at Stanford University published their paper on the optical control of the brain – now known as optogenetics – in which the firing pattern of neurons is controlled by light. To create the system, they retrofitted neurons in mouse brains with genes for a biomolecule called channelrhodopsin, found in algae. Channelrhodopsin uses energy from light to open pathways so that charged ions can flow into cells. The charged ions can alter the electrical activity of neurons, influencing the animal’s behaviour along the way.

Soon researchers were using implants to guide light to channelrhodopsin in specific neurons in the brains of those mice, eliciting behaviour on demand. At the University of California the team of Anatol Kreitzer worked with Deisseroth to disrupt movement, mimicking Parkinson’s disease and even restoring normal movement in a Parkinsonian mouse. Deisseroth and his colleague Luis de Lecea later demonstrated that it was possible to wake up mice by activating a group of neurons in the brain that control arousal and sleep.

But optogenetics has been challenging. Since light does not easily penetrate dense fatty brain tissue, researchers must implant a fibre-optic cable to bring light into the brain. This limitation led to the development of another, less intrusive technique known as DREADD (designer receptors exclusively activated by designer drugs). In this case, a receptor normally activated by the neurotransmitter acetylcholine is modified to respond to a designer drug not normally found in the body. When the designer drug is delivered, neurons can be manipulated and behaviour changed over a number of hours. The major drawback here: the slow course of drug administration compared with the rapid changes in brain activity that occur during most tasks.

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Eight completely paralysed people have regained function in their limbs following virtual reality training, in an accidental result that has astonished even the scientists involved.

Using a brain-machine interface, scientists showed that people with long-term severe paralysis could retrain the few remaining connections in their damaged spines, letting their brains talk to their extremities once more. This enabled them to feel sensation, move their limbs and improved their bladder and bowel control.

The results came about as a wholly unexpected side effect of training to help people use robotic exoskeletons, which let them walk upright.

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G. Owen Schaefer, National University of Singapore

Would you want to alter your future children’s genes to make them smarter, stronger or better-looking? As the state of the science brings prospects like these closer to reality, an international debate has been raging over the ethics of enhancing human capacities with biotechnologies such as so-called smart pills, brain implants and gene editing. This discussion has only intensified in the past year with the advent of the CRISPR-cas9 gene editing tool, which raises the specter of tinkering with our DNA to improve traits like intelligence, athleticism and even moral reasoning.

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Interview conducted by , MA (Cantab)

Prior to your study, how much was known about the way brain circuits develop? How has your recent study advanced our understanding?

There’s a tremendous amount known about brain circuit development. Our work was inspired by experiments that were done over 50 years ago by scientists at Harvard University, Hubel and Wiesel. They received a Nobel Prize for their work and have inspired many additional experiments over the last 50 or 60 years.

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