The first human-to-human, brain-to-brain noninvasive interface has been created by researchers at the University of Washington. The system allows one researcher to remotely control the hand of another researcher, across the internet, merely by thinking about moving his hand. The researchers are
already looking at a two-way system, to allow for a more “equitable” telepathic link between the two human brains, and the telepathic communication of complex information.
In a press release , the experiment was described as follows:
The team had a Skype connection set up so the two labs could coordinate, though neither Rao nor Stocco could see the Skype screens. Rao looked at a computer screen and played a simple video game with his mind. When he was supposed to fire a cannon at a target, he imagined moving his right hand (being careful not to actually move his hand), causing a cursor to hit the "fire" button. Almost instantaneously, Stocco, who wore noise-canceling earbuds and wasn't looking at a computer screen, involuntarily moved his right index finger to push the space bar on the keyboard in front of him, as if firing the cannon. Stocco compared the feeling of his hand moving involuntarily to that of a nervous tic.
The mind-meld between the researchers wasn't seamless. Rao spent time training his mind, with feedback from the computer, to emit the brainwave for moving the right hand so that it could be detected by the computer. "The intention can be as detectable as the movement itself," Prat said. "Brain-computer interfaces have been capturing this with increasing accuracy over the last decade." When the software sees the right signal it is sent via the Internet to a computer connected to a transcranial magnetic stimulation device, which is positioned on the exact spot of the brain that controls the right hand. "It uses simple physics," Prat said. "When the magnetic field changes, it induces an electrical current, so a signal is sent through the cortex of the brain and excites the neurons, simulating what happens naturally."
Despite the massive and mostly- not-understood complexity of the human brain, the UW brain- to-brain interface is actually quite simple, relying on tools that are regularly used in the fields of medicine and brain- computer interfaces (BCIs). The first human brain (the sender) is connected to a computer via an EEG-based BCI. The second human brain (the receiver) is connected to another computer via a Magstim transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) machine — the same kind of TMS setup that has been somewhat successful in treating depression, and other mental maladies.
When the sender plays a game and thinks about firing a cannon at a target, the EEG picks it up, sends the signal across the internet to the second computer, and the TMS stimulates the region of the receiver’s motor cortex that controls hand movement. This causes the receiver’s index finger to twitch, firing the cannon and blowing up the target.
This process is almost instantaneous. TMS is a lot like transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), which we have written about extensively. Where tDCS passes an electrical current through your brain, affecting the neurons that the electrons travel through, TMS uses electromagnetic induction to create a similar effect. Both tDCS and TMS can be used to either stimulate regions of the brain, useful for brain-to-brain interfaces or increasing the activity of regions of the brain associated with depression, or to reduce the activity of a region, which might help with the treatment of other conditions, such as Parkinson’s.
Like tDCS, TMS is completely noninvasive, and so far it appears to be completely safe. The University of Washington (UW) researchers, led by Rajesh Rao and Andrea Stocco, have basically connected two quite simple and well-understood systems into a novel and slightly terrifying human-to-human interface. It is very similar to Harvard’s human-to-mouse interface, except they used focused ultrasound (FUS) instead of TMS to trigger the motor cortex. That the UW setup works isn’t all that surprising — the main thing is that that, for the first time, a human is on the receiving end, which raises some interesting ethical and moral issues.
Where does human brain-to-brain
communication go from this simple
experiment? "It's very much a first step, but it
shows what is possible," Prat said.
"Right now the only way to transfer
information from one brain to another is with
words," she said. With advances in computer
science and neuroscience, people could
eventually perform complicated tasks, such as
flying an airplane, and dancing the tango, by
transferring information in a noninvasive way
from one brain to another. "You can imagine
all complex motor skills, which are difficult to
verbalize, are just chains of procedures," Prat said.
More complex cognitive skills, such as
understanding algebra and physics could also
benefit from the technology. "Ultimately, it's
important education and training, especially
when knowledge cannot be easily translatable
into words." she said.
Prat noted that some people might be nervous
about this technology being used to control
minds against their will. "The signal is being
transmitted remotely through the Internet, but
the humans are connected to physical
equipment and must be trained to create the
right signals. There is no way to control minds
without their willingness," Prat said.
Rao and Stocco are now working on transmitting more complex
information between two human brains.
This could be done fairly simply with
encoded pulses — think brain- to-brain Morse code —
or they could go the complex route and
try to stimulate the brain into creating actual images and
thoughts. There’s still a lot of work to be done to decode the human brain ,
so it will be very interesting to see how future human-to-human brain-to-brain interfaces
are implemented.
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