By the time Qi Min arrived at the lab, Ke Li had already instantaneously connected the rat to the 256×256×256 miniature brain-like body several times.

Indeed, as long as the time is short enough, the rat will not be unconscious. However, the connected rat will be sluggish for 30 minutes to an hour, and then will start to run around the cage irregularly, as if it has become almost crazy.

It's an interesting phenomenon. And if we follow Qi Min's whimsical explanation, what if the brain-like body absorbs something from rats when it makes connections—similar to "vitality"? - Then it is possible that it stores this "vitality" and releases it back to the rat when the connection is lost. However, due to the long-term connection with multiple rats, a large amount of "vitality" was absorbed and failed to be released, so the micro-brain-like body may release too much "vitality" to the instantaneously connected rat later, resulting in its excess "vitality" and abnormal behavior.

If this hypothesis is slightly closer to the facts, then it can be assumed that the so-called "vitality" is essentially some kind of neural activity, which is transmitted to the brain-like body through the corpus callosum interface and stored as data, and then transmitted back to the rat's brain through the corpus callosum interface.

Qi Min originally wanted to build a virtual connectome brain that could reflect the characteristics of real brains, but now it seems to be more like something that cannot achieve brain signal demodulation, but may store some information from the brain. Regardless, she believes that this thing is definitely worth researching.

But how to study it? In the end, it still does not solve the problem of brain signal demodulation, and even if it stores any information, it cannot be understood......

Qi Min thought about it and felt that even if they couldn't decipher the information stored by the brain-like body, they could at least design experiments to prove that it could store information from the brain. Even if she wants to do something big, she has to admit that she is not a serious computer science major, and she is a layman in analyzing data, and it is impossible for her second-rate team to solve the information stored by the brain-like body.

——

To design experiments to prove that brain-like bodies can store information from the brain, Qi Min's first reaction was to discuss with researcher Zhou Xiaoshan. When she had already written a message on WeChat, before clicking to send, she thought that researcher Zhou Xiaoshan was not her mentor, and she was now the PI of the laboratory working independently, so she had to decide for herself.

However, Wang Xin and Chen Linyou didn't know much about animal experiments, so they probably couldn't help much, so Qi Min still chose to find a quiet place with Ke Li to discuss it.

She met at the café by the pond on campus. It just so happens that it's cold now, and there are not many people in the café.

Seated under the café's outdoor parasols, the two ignored the recommendations and ordered two cups of lemon tea.

Qi Min first said that he wanted to design experiments to prove that the brain-like body can indeed store the information of the rat's brain, and Ke Li immediately said: "It's not difficult to do - connect rat A for a long time, and then connect rat B instantly, and see if it can obtain the information that originally belonged to rat A's brain." ”

"The basic idea is this." Qi Min asked, "But how do you measure whether B has obtained A's information?" What this message is, that's critical. Do you have any guesses? ”

"Hmm...... At least part of it is memory? Ke Li guessed.

Qi Min took a sip of black tea and thought for a while before saying, "There are two hypotheses. First, if the information is written and output from the brain-like body in a stack pattern, then the output first should be the last to be written, probably from the hippocampus - such as working memory and the like. Second, if the write and output are ringed, then the output will be output first and then the write, which should be ...... Visual images? ”

"It's also possible that it's not linear at all." Ke Li added, "Then it may not be measurable......

"Anyway, let's design the detection method according to working memory and visual images." Qi Min said.

"Then the two can be used in the same experiment." Ke Li immediately said, "The water maze should be fine." ”

His design was to mark four different patterns at the same distance on the walls of the water maze, one of which corresponds to the location of the underwater platform. Rat-A was asked to complete the water maze test first, so that its working memory stored the pattern information corresponding to the position of the underwater platform, and finally saw the pattern. Then, it was immediately connected to the newly generated 256×256×256 miniature brain-like body to cause it to be unconscious, and then rat B was instantaneously connected with the miniature brain-like body to obtain the information of rat A's brain, and then rat B was asked to do the same water maze test. If working memory or visual image information can be transmitted from A to B through the brain-like body, the average time for group B rats to pass the water maze test will be significantly shortened.

In order to verify that the experimental design is correct, at least two control experiments are also required. In the first blank control experiment, rat B was directly connected to the newly generated empty brain-like body without connecting rat A with the brain-like body for a long time, so as to exclude the effect of the instantaneous connection of the brain-like body itself on the performance of rat B's water maze. The second condition-controlled experiment was to change the position of the underwater platform in the water maze test of rat B to verify that the information input through the brain-like body would indeed lead the rat to the underwater platform position of the first water maze test.

In this way, it is necessary to prepare at least three sets of newly generated 256×256×256 miniature brain-like bodies. And if there is more than one rat per group, 3N mini-brain-like bodies are required. Fortunately, Qi Min's full-size brain-like body has been generated, and the computing resources of the "Nimbus" supercomputing center have been freed up a little, and it is still relatively easy to use it to make 256×256×256 "gadgets".

In the café, Qi Min and Ke Li wrote out a detailed experimental design. After all, there are limitations on experimental equipment, so Qi Min set the number of rats in each group at 3 pairs (only 3 in the blank control group), and then returned to the laboratory to start preparing for the experiment.

Rats that had previously installed the corpus callosum interface could no longer be used, so the interface had to be removed, cleaned and reinstalled. This matter can only be handled by Ke Li, and Qi Min is responsible for generating 9 new 256×256×256 miniature brain-like bodies, and preparing all other experimental equipment.

Even after working overtime, from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. to the lab every day, it still took a week to prepare.

Fortunately, it was finally ready, Qi Min and Ke Li came to the animal experiment platform with computers, data cables and 15 cages of rats, and installed the four marker patterns of the water maze.

First, the experimental group A-1 rats were asked to do the first water maze test, and then the prepared data cable interface group was connected to the interface group above its head. Rat A-1 was unexpectedly unconscious. The A-1 rat was then disconnected and the brain-like interface was re-instantaneously connected to the B-1 rat, and the B-1 rat was successfully awakened.

So far so good.

Quercus placed the B-1 rat in the fixed position at the beginning of the water maze test. The moment his hand leaves, the camera above the water maze begins to record and the B-1 rat begins to swim—

However, it did not swim straight towards the pattern that represented the direction of the underwater platform.