Re-wiring the human brain for better outcomes

(July 2024) When the cat’s away, the mice will play.. And when the cat’s nearby, the mice run away.

But how does their brain tell them to do it? 

Sure, it’s instinct. Mouse brains are hard-wired to flee when they see a cat. 

But it’s surprising what scientists find when they study the effects of the brain on certain behaviors, especially those related to parenting or reproduction. 

Stimulating the brain, for example, can make male mice behave like females, and vice versa. 

“Males have the circuitry to behave like females, but those circuits haven’t been activated,” says Dr. Xu Xiao Hong of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. 

Dr. Xu and her colleagues are researching how to re-wire brain circuitry in novel ways, she tells Huawei Editor-in-Chief Gavin Allen at the final round of Huawei’s annual ICT Competition for college and university students around the world.

By studying innate animal behavior, Dr. Xu says, we can better understand the evolutionary history of humans – and maybe modify some of the impulses that evolution has hard-wired into our brains.