14 DAY TRIAL // Towards the end of February, scientists in the US announced that they had created a so-called brain-to-brain interface that made it possible for one rat to influence another one's behavior with the help of brain signals sent via the Internet alone.
Scientists at the University of Washington now say that they have successfully performed the same experiment on humans.
What they did was set up a human-to-human brain interface that made it possible for a researcher to control the hand motions of one of his colleagues.
The two scientists were located at a considerable distance from one another, i.e. they were sitting on opposite sides of the University of Washington's campus.
However, brain signals sent by Rajesh Rao via the Internet caused Andrea Stocco's finger to move on a keyboard.
“It was both exciting and eerie to watch an imagined action from my brain get translated into actual action by another brain,” researcher Rajesh Rao describes the experience.
“This was basically a one-way flow of information from my brain to his,” he further details.
Andrea Stoco, on the other hand, says that his involuntarily moving his finger felt almost like having a nervous tic.
The experiment was carried out on August 12. On that day, Rajesh Rao was asked to look at a computer screen and play a video game, but only do so mentally.
Thus, he was not allowed to use his fingers to actually move a mouse or press any key on a keyboard.
While Rajesh Rao was mentally playing the video game, an electroencephalography machine was reading his brain activity.
When the researcher imagined moving his hand to hit the “fire” button, brain signals got transmitted to Andrea Stocco via the Internet.
The result was that this second researcher, who was not looking at a computer screen and had no idea what game Rajesh Rao was playing, moved his right finger and pushed the space bar on a keyboard in front of him.
Otherwise put, he hit the “fire” button himself.
In the future, scientists hope to figure out a way to use brain signals and the Internet to send more complex information from one person to another.
“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 Stoco explains.
Check out the video below to see how the experiment unfolded.
