Microchips Repair Brain Damage in Rats [VIDEO]

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Stroke and Parkinson's Disease patients may benefit from a controversial experiment that implanted microchips into lab rats. Scientists say the tests produced effective results in brain damage research.

Rats showed motor function in formerly damaged gray matter after a neural microchip was implanted under the rat's skull and electrodes were transferred to the rat's brain. Without the microchip, rats with damaged brain tissue did not have motor function. Both strokes and Parkinson's can cause permanent neurological damage to brain tissue, so this scientific research brings hope.

"Imagine there's a small area in the brain that is malfunctioning, and imagine that we understand the architecture of this damaged area. So we try to replicate this part of the brain with electronics," Matti Mintz, a professor at Tel Aviv University, told the BBC.

Scientists trained rats with and without microchips to blink after hearing a sound it associated with a puff of air to test motor function. Rats with a microchip blinked after the sound played and before the air was actually blown. A rat without a microchip did not blink when it heard the sound.

Watch the video to learn more about the research and to see who is angry about it.