Neuroscience Fiction: The Neuromods of Prey (2017)
What are Neuromods and how do they work?
In the survival horror game Prey, you play as the scientist Morgan Yu while exploring the space station Talos I. Morgan is the director of research of TranStar industries, his family megacorporation and in Talos I they research an alien metamorphing biology called Typhon. Yu is also a volunteer an experiment on the long-term use and removal of the main product created by TranStar: the Neural Modifier, or Neuromod.
The events in the game are set in motion after some Typhon organisms escape confinement and cause an outbreak that result in the death of most of the crew.
What are neuroscientists even doing in an alien infested space station? Well, the answer is a little disturbing:
"Typhon exotic organic tissues are the main component of the Neuromod serum.
Neuromods change the structure of the patient's brain, manipulating it to grant effects ranging from learning a foreign language, learning how to play an instrument, or even increasing the user's lifespan. Needles inject a serum into the neurons in the brain that turns them sensitive to light and abruptly increases their capacity to create new synapses. Then, the neuromod uses lasers and light to map the patient's brain, and then extrapolates the changes required to grant the effects desired.
Extracting the neuromod results in the loss of all of the memory obtained in the period of time since the neuromod was installed”.
In sum, the Neuromods are the result of the combining forces of Optogenetics and alien material, which injected in the patient’s brain to create new neuron networks on the subject brain.
“Optogenetics (from Greek, optikós, meaning 'seen, visible') is a biological technique that involves the use of light to control cells in living tissues, typically neurons, which have been genetically modified to express light-sensitive ion channels. It is a neuromodulation method that uses a combination of techniques from optics and genetics to control and monitor the activities of individual neurons in living tissues—even within freely moving animals—and to precisely measure these manipulation effects in real-time. The key reagents used in optogenetics are light-sensitive proteins. Neuronal control is achieved using optogenetic actuators like channelrhodopsin, halorhodopsin, and archaerhodopsin…”
Considered a breakthrough of the decade, the use of optogenetics to control neurons and the brain shows great promise due the precision, low level of intrusion and low cost. The steps it takes to set a study using optogenetics are well known, precise and relatively cheap. The use of genetic editing techniques like CRISPR allow the target neurons to express the light sensitive membrane proteins like channelrhodopsin and/or halorhodopsin and a surgical step is needed to allow the cells to react to the light.
Channelrhodopsin is a positive ion channel sensitive to blue light; meanwhile halorhodopsin is a negative ion channel sensitive to green/yellow light. These proteins allow you to modulate the membrane potential of the target neuron - activating channelrhodopsin excites the membrane (making action potentials easier to happen) and halorhodopsin inhibits it (making action potentials harder). Targeting the neurons with light allows you to control them, activating or deactivating the cell, triggering synapses or denying the passage of an electrical pulse. This allows researchers using optogenetics to generate the brain stimuli they want with precision, simulating seizures, anxiety episodes, triggering reflexes and so on.
The frequent use of a synapse and a network of neurons is what stimulates their growth, upkeep, and the development of new connections and, through optogenetics, the stimuli of the synapses using lights is possible.
The fictional technology of the Neuromod involves the serum, which hyper-stimulates neuroplasticity, allowing neural networks and synapses to form with minimal stimuli and time. Then, the optogenetics come to play using a laser to map the brain and then stimulate or stop growth of new networks of synapses, which supposedly will simulate a new knowledge or ability.
I believe that the novel idea that is the Neuromod is not far-fetched: it presents multiple challenges to develop, like a serum capable of stimulating synaptic growth and the knowledge of how neural networks function to generate knowledge and abilities. It’s science fiction nonetheless, a dream of what we may be capable of in the future.
http://prey.wikia.com/wiki/Neuromod
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optogenetics
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4756725/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2820367/
http://www.jneurosci.org/content/26/41/10380.long
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I64X7vHSHOE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhza367GNuc
https://wordofthenerdonline.com/science-prey-neuromods/
http://thepsychreport.com/research-application/featured-research/manipulating-memory-through-optogenetics-qa-with-neuroscientists-xu-liu-and-steve-ramirez/
