Scientists Can Control Worm Brain Cells Using Sound Waves

Scientists from Salk Institute have conducted a new experiment and published it in Nature Communications. They discovered a technique to control the brain cells of Caenorhabditis elegans worms with sound waves, according to Engadget.

Sound waves enabled the scientists to add another membrane ion channel to the neurons and shoot them with ultrasonic sound waves, helping them to change the direction of the worms.

A membrane ion channel called the TRP-4 protein was also inserted into various types of neurons with various functions, according to Nature.

Even as this was used along with pulses of ultrasound, "the worms were made to reverse direction, stop or make a sharp turn," according to hngn.

These conclusions gave a potential to provide an alternative to "optogenetics," which was a similar field of science providing light instead of sound to achieve similar results, according to BBC News. However, light is not so good at penetrating tissues due to the fact that it scatters quickly.

"This could be a big advantage when you want to stimulate a region deep in the brain," said Stuart Ibsen, the study's first author.

So far only mice have been tested, and it is not clear whether it will work or not in mammalian brain cells. However, this gives the potential for non-invasive techniques of altering the brain without electrodes. The scientists have begun testing on mice and plan on moving on to humans in the future.

"The real prize will be to see whether this could work in a mammalian brain," said Sreekanth Chalasani, who runs the Salk Institute lab where the research was conducted.