Brandon Spurling, left, Kale Langley and Jacob Gambrell attach electrodes to the antennae of a cockroach as they study neuron and synapses in Jim Marlowe’s Advanced Placement Biology class at Boyd-Buchanan on Friday.Fifteen-year-old Brandon Spurling plunged a death’s head cockroach into a glass of ice water to anesthetize it before performing surgery on the bug.
His goal was to take over the insect by using a remote control to stimulate its nervous system through implanted wires.
His teacher Jim Marlowe’s goal was to teach students in his advanced placement biology class about the nervous system: If you stimulate the nerves, you can get a response.
Marlowe, a former microbiologist researcher turned Boyd Buchanan School teacher, got the idea of roach surgery from the Internet when he read about two University of Michigan graduate students who wanted to make neuroscience understandable and practical to students in high school.
The students on Friday had so much fun sending impulses to the cockroaches’ nervous systems that Marlowe and other teachers had to encourage some to leave after the class ended.