Cyborg Monkeys

by Osirian Dawn
Reality Sandwich
September 27, 2012

Mental augmentation for animals is no longer a science fiction fantasy plot, but a scientific reality. Researchers from Wake Forest Baptist Medical Centre, University of Kentucky, and University of Southern California were able to increase the intellectual proficiency of monkeys. George Dvorsky writes about these groundbreaking findings in his article, “Should we upgrade the intelligence of animals?”

The scientists took five rhesus monkeys and trained them in identifying certain images within a delayed match-to-sample game. After two years, the monkeys attained an average of a 75% proficiency rate. After having mapped out the areas of the brain that lit up when the monkeys correctly identified the images, they then administered cocaine (you just can’t make this stuff up) to hinder their decision-making.

To the scientists’ amazement, when they turned on the implanted neural devices within the monkeys’ brains, they found that they were able to reverse the effects of the cocaine. But what’s even more incredible is they discovered, under sober conditions, that the neural device allowed the monkeys to exceed the average proficiency rate, signifying an actual intelligence increase!

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