Researchers sent a brain signal from one human to another in what is believed to be the first non-invasive brain-to-brain interface ever performed on two people.
One researcher sent a brain signal through the internet, and elicited a reaction in another participant sitting on the opposite side of campus.
"The Internet was a way to connect computers, and now it can be a way to connect brains. We want to take the knowledge of a brain and transmit it directly from brain to brain," Andrea Stocco, the researcher that received the brain signals, said.
The feat has been achieved in rats, and Harvard researchers even demonstrated an interface between human and rat; this is the first time it has been achieved between two humans.
Rajesh Rao of the University of Washington, had been working on a human-to-human interface technique for over 10 years before it finally became a reality.
The researchers used Electroencephalography (EEG), which is often used to detect brain activity. Transcranial magnetic stimulation is used to create a response in whatever part of the brain the coil connects with. In this experiment, the researchers placed a coil over the brain region responsible for moving the right hand.
"Rao sat in his lab wearing a cap with electrodes hooked up to an electroencephalography machine, which reads electrical activity in the brain. Stocco was in his lab across campus wearing a purple swim cap marked with the stimulation site for the transcranial magnetic stimulation coil that was placed directly over his left motor cortex, which controls hand movement," the press release reported.
Rao "pretended" to play a video game with his mind, and concentrated on the idea of moving his right hand when he would have normally "fired the cannon" by pressing a button.
Stocco (who was wearing noise-cancelling headphones and could not see the screen) almost immediately pressed the spacebar on a keyboard. Stocco compared the feeling to a "nervous tic."
"It was both exciting and eerie to watch an imagined action from my brain get translated into actual action by another brain," Rao said. "This was basically a one-way flow of information from my brain to his. The next step is having a more equitable two-way conversation directly between the two brains."
Stocco joked the technology was comparable to a "Vulcan mind meld." Rao warns the interfacing should not be overestimated because it can only read simple brain activity, and not complex thoughts.
"I think some people will be unnerved by this because they will overestimate the technology. There's no possible way the technology that we have could be used on a person unknowingly or without their willing participation." Chantel Prat, assistant professor in psychology at the UW's Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences, and Stocco's wife, said.
Ideas for future uses included helping an exhausted pilot land a plane, or giving the disabled an easier mode of communication.
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