Scientists have successfully augmented the senses of blind rats to provide them with spatial awareness of their environment without the need for vision.

In research published in the journal Current Biology, the scientists attached a geomagnetic compass and microstimulators to the rats’ brains, providing a new sensory input that the rats themselves learnt to use.

The research is significant because it demonstrates mammals’ ability to adapt to new sensory inputs, even when fully developed, suggesting humans could augment their own senses with the help of technology.

“The most remarkable point of this paper is to show the potential, or the latent ability, of the brain,” said study co-author Dr Yuji Ikegaya, from the University of Tokyo’s Laboratory of Chemical Pharmacology.

“That is, we demonstrated that the mammalian brain is flexible even in adulthood – enough to adaptively incorporate a novel, never-experienced, non-inherent modality into the pre-existing information sources.”

Excitingly, this suggests that mammalian, and therefore human, brains are capable of processing sensory information even if we have never evolved the physical ability to capture it.

This means that with the help of artificial sensing devices, humans could learn to sense everything from ultraviolet radiation and geomagnetic input to ultrasound waves.

“Perhaps you do not yet make full use of your brain,” said Ikegaya.

“The limitation does not come from your lack of effort, but it does come from the poor sensory organs of your body. The real sensory world must be much more ‘colourful’ than what you are currently experiencing.”

Essentially, we are capable of sensing far more than our evolved senses permit, and with the development of sensory tech, we could sense the world in ways never experienced before by humans.

In the shorter term, the technology could also be used to help blind people navigate without assistance, through the development of neuroprosthesis attached to a cane.

By equipping the rats with the geomagnetic device, the scientists intended not to restore their vision, but their ability to recognise their own position within the environment, known as their allocentric sense.

However, whether the animals’ brains would know what to do with the information fed to it was unknown, and the main focus of the research.

Once the sensor device was detected, the rats were trained to find food pellets in a series of mazes. Over a course of just days, the rats’ allocentric senses returned, showing they had been able to adapt to the new sensory input.

“We were surprised that rats can comprehend a new sense that had never been experienced or ‘explained by anybody’ and can learn to use it in behavioral tasks within only two to three days,” added Ikegaya.