June 12, 2013

Image Credit: Backyard Brains

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com Your Universe Online

A new Kickstarter project wants to allow you to own and control your own cyborg cockroach.

The RoboRoach is the worlds first commercially available Insect Cyborg that involves neuroscience and engineering. Researchers from Backyard Brains created a device that allows you to install a pack to the antenna of a cockroach and control the insect using an app available on the iPhone.

Our RoboRoach is an innovative marriage of behavioral neuroscience and neural engineering, the Backyard Brains researchers wrote on their Kickstarter page. Cockroaches use the antennas on their head to navigate the world around them. When these antennas touch a wall, the cockroach turns away from the wall. The antenna of a cockroach contains neurons that are sensitive to touch and smell.

They said the neurons help to convey information back to the brain using electricity in the form of spikes. A backpack installed on the back of the cockroach helps communicate directly to the neurons using small electrical pulses.

When you send the command from your mobile phone, the backpack sends pulses to the antenna, which causes the neurons to fire, which causes the roach to think there is a wall on one side, the scientists wrote.

By utilizing this method, the researchers have devised a way for you to control the direction in which a cockroach is turning, all from your iPhone. This technology is the same used to treat Parkinsons disease and is also used in cochlear implants. They said the funding will help better their research into this technology, which could even spill over into other neurological fields as well as help the publics understanding of neurology.

This product is not a toy, but a tool to learn about how our brains work. Using the RoboRoach, you will be able to discover a number of interesting things about nature, the researchers said.

Read more:

Kickstarter Project Funds Cyborg Cockroaches