Have scientists taken the first steps towards creating an “organic computer” using real-life brain-to-brain interfaces?
An article published in Scientific Reports Thursday detailed the results of a research study which “enabled a real-time transfer of behaviorally meaningful sensorimotor information between the brains of two rats” located in two different countries, Brazil and the U.S. During the brain-to-brain interface (BTBI), one “encoder rat” located in a lab in Brazil performed “tasks that required it to select from two choices of tactile or visual stimuli.” Using electronic sensors attached to the encoder rat, “samples of its cortical (brain) activity were transmitted to matching cortical areas of a ‘decoder’ rat’ (located in the U.S.) using intracortical micro stimulation (ICMS).”
What all of this means is that the scientists were able to link the brains of two rats and have them perform as one unit, basically creating “a new central nervous system made of two brains,” says lead researcher Miguel Nicolelis, a neuroscientist at Duke University. The results: a mind meld where the thoughts of one rat guided the other rat to mimic its behaviors.
But unlike a Star Trek Vulcan mind meld, which used telepathy to link two individuals allowing them to “be of one mind” and share thoughts, Nicolelis says “this system allows one rat to use the senses of another…it’s not telepathy. It’s not the Borg.”
So what are the implications of direct brain-to-brain communication? Nicolelis says it’s “the first step towards constructing an organic computer that uses networks of linked animal brains to solve tasks.” He believes the results show how BTBIs could be used to “exchange, process, and store information,” thus serving “as the basis for studies of novel types of social interaction and for biological computing devices.”
It’s the “novel types of social interaction” part that Nicolelis mentions that may be of concern, however. It wouldn’t be too hard to imagine armies of animal or human soldiers all controlled by others. Interestingly, $26 million dollars in funding for Nicolelis’s research comes from the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) “for work on brain-machine interfaces.”
While the idea of creating computing devices that can “think” on their own is nothing new, the research is a step towards creating what the researchers call a “brain net,” where animals’ brains are linked together to create a network. Duke researchers are currently attempting “to link four rats’ brains,” and Nicolelis is conducting research studies involving mind-to-mind communication between monkeys (nonhuman primates). Will these experiments eventually lead to the creation of a human brain net?
According to the article by Reuters, “Mind Melds Move from Science Fiction to Science in Rats,” Nicolelis was quoted as saying, “I wouldn’t mind if, 100 years from now, people say two rats started human brain nets.” Can someone say “cheese?”
So how close are researchers to achieving fully operational brain-machine interfaces? According to the Reuters article, Bioengineer Douglas Weber of Pittsburgh says that “It’s cool that the stimulus came from another brain rather than an electrical device, but many labs have shown that animals can detect electrical stimuli delivered to the brain. This paper simply shows that the animals can detect electrical stimuli…from another rat’s brain. There is nothing unexpected or surprising.”
However, “Neurobiologist Andrew Schwartz, of the University of Pittsburgh, a leader in the field of brain-computer interactions, said that ‘from a scientific/engineering point of view, this is of limited interest.’ Brain-machine interfaces ‘have moved far beyond this.’” How “far beyond” does Schwartz mean? Are researchers already using our natural telepathic abilities for purposes of brain-machine interfaces, and are we actually close to true mind melds?
Let’s hope the saying “two heads are better than one” doesn’t set the stage for our future, where we’re all linked together in one giant brain net or mind meld. There’s something to be said for diversity and individual thought.
Link to article: http://www.gcnlive.com/wp/2013/03/01/mind-melds-and-brain-nets/
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