Scientists hack locust brains to identify cancer cells by smell
Miscellaneous / / June 23, 2022
In the future, this will help create quick breath tests - already without insects.
New research showedthat locust brains can help detect signs of cancer in humans in a laboratory setting.
The very idea of using animals to detect disease is not new: service dogs trained to accompanying diabetics, are able to monitor the owner's blood glucose level, and after just a couple of weeks dog training can determinewhether the person is sick with the coronavirus.
In all cases, animals react to body odor and human breath. The fact is that the composition of the chemicals in our natural fluids can vary with our metabolism - which changes when we get sick. Changes can be several parts per trillion, and modern equipment cannot recognize this - but animals, thanks to evolution, have learned to do this.
But training and maintaining a dog is quite difficult and expensive - and creating a device that works on the principle of a dog's nose is extremely difficult. Then scientists from the Michigan Technological University decided to hack the brain of an animal in order to better understand how it all works.
Locusts were chosen as experimental subjects, since these insects are well studied. The scientists surgically exposed the brain of a live locust and inserted electrodes into the lobes of the brain that receive signals from the insect's antennae, which they use to smell.
They also grew three different types of human oral cancer cells, as well as cancer-free cells. They used a device to capture the gas emitted by each type of cell and brought it to the antennae of the locust. The locust's brain responded differently to each signal, so much so that scientists could accurately determine which gas a test subject had received, based only on the recording of the electrical activity of the brain.
This is the first time that the brain of a living insect has been used to detect cancer. For an accurate result, it is optimal to use a system of 6-10 brains to analyze enough neurons, but the authors hope that using other electrodes will help to get by with just one. They also plan to create a portable device using the brain and antennae of a locust that can be used to diagnose real patients.
But the question of ethics remains open. When the bees use to search for explosives, this does not harm the insects, and after the "work" they are released into the wild. However, for locusts, participation in such experiments is a one-way ticket, which may not suit some patients.
However, scientists are also trying to determine which receptors in the antennae help detect cancer in order to copy them in the laboratory and stop using real insects. Perhaps in the future it will be possible to create completely artificial devices for rapid respiratory tests for cancer.
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