Scientists hooked up geomagnetic sensors to rats, allowing them to navigate a maze in the same amount of time as rats with good vision.
A new study has found that a “sixth sense” could be helping blind rats “see” enough to navigate a maze, which could be a groundbreaking finding that could help blind humans in the future.
Scientists connected a digital compass to electrodes and attached them to the rats’ visual cortexes, essentially feeding them geomagnetic information and allowing the rodents to use that information to move through a maze just as fast as a rat that still had its vision, according to a Smithsonian report.
The study, which was published in New Scientist, noted that the rats were sent a pulse of electricity to its right visual cortex whenever it aligned its head to the north within 20 degrees, and a pulse was sent to its left visual cortex when it pointed south. This allowed the blind rats to figure out their surroundings without the need to see.
The results show that the brains of mammals are very adaptable, and it could mean that people could have geomagnetic sensors attached to their canes to enable them to get around without visual aids.
In fact, the findings could result in more senses, even for humans that have perfect eyesight. It could allow for sensors that detect ultraviolet radiation, sound waves, and more, according to a statement accompanying the study.
Neuroscientist David Edelman explored this very concept during the 2015 TED conference.
As it turns out, some blind people have already added an extra sense on their own, clicking their tongues for echolocation, according to another Smithsonian report. The idea is that a quick noise can send sound waves that bounce off objects to tell them where they are in reference to that object.
A study examined the effectiveness of this practice. They had people with normal vision and blind people — both those who used echolocation and those who did not — determine which box was the heaviest by pulling on a string that was attached to each box. Those with normal vision fell victim to an illusion where the smaller an object is, the more it seems to weigh compared to larger ones of a similar weight.
Blind people who did not use echolocation correctly reported that all of the objects were the same weight. Those who used echolocation, on the other hand, fell victim to the same illusion, thinking the smaller boxes weighed the most, indicating that it does act as a sensory replacement for vision.
