Researchers Link Two Rats' Brains via Computer

[jimmy olsen]

Freaky!

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/02/28/brain_to_brain_interface_migeul_nicolelis_links_rats_minds_via_computer.html

In Scientific First, Researchers Link Two Rats' Brains via Computer

By Will Oremus

Posted Thursday, Feb. 28, 2013, at 11:16 AM

Brain_to_Brain_interface
Researchers used one rat's brain waves to influence a second rat's actions.

Illustration courtesy of Duke University

It's not exactly rat telepathy. Let's call it a computer-mediated rat mind-meld.

In a lab in Brazil, a rat faced an opening in the wall of its enclosure, and two levers. If it detected with its whiskers that the opening was narrow, it was supposed to press one lever. If the opening was wide, it was supposed to press the other. Choose the right lever, and it would be rewarded with a sip of water.

With practice, the rat learned to press the correct lever 95 percent of the time. Then came the remarkable part.

Researchers implanted one set of electrodes in the brain of the rat in Brazil, and another set of electrodes in the brain of a second rat at Duke University. Via an Internet connection, they set it up so that a signal from the brain of the rat in Brazil would be sent, in simplified form, directly to the brain of the rat in North Carolina. The rat in North Carolina also faced two levers, but had no information to go on as to which one to press—except for the signal coming from the first rat's brain.

The test: Could the rat in North Carolina press the correct lever, based on the width of the opening in the enclosure of the rat in Brazil? Six or seven times out of 10, it did.

The study, published Thursday morning in the open-access journal Scientific Reports, appears to be the first to allow animals to communicate via a brain-to-brain computer interface. The researchers, led by neuroscientist Miguel Nicolelis at Duke, say the feedback actually went both ways: When the second rat chose the correct lever, the first rat got an additional reward, which apparently encouraged it to send a clearer and stronger brain signal the next time. If that's true, it would amount to not only communication, but a form of cooperation.

Nicolelis believes this opens the possibility of building an "organic computer" that links the brains of multiple animals into a single central nervous system, which he calls a "brain-net." Are you a little creeped out yet? In a statement, Nicolelis adds:

    We cannot even predict what kinds of emergent properties would appear when animals begin interacting as part of a brain-net. In theory, you could imagine that a combination of brains could provide solutions that individual brains cannot achieve by themselves.

That sounds far-fetched. But Nicolelis' lab is developing quite the track record of "taking science fiction and turning it into science," says Ron Frostig, a neurobiologist at UC-Irvine who was not involved in the rat study. "He's the most imaginative neuroscientist right now." (Frostig made it clear he meant this as a complement, though skeptics might interpret the word less charitably.)

Nicolelis previously made headlines in 2008 when he used brain signals from a monkey in North Carolina to operate a pair of robotic legs in Japan. The ultimate goal is to allow paralyzed people to use their minds to control robotic limbs as if they were their own appendages.

The potential applications of brain-to-brain interfaces for humans aren't entirely clear. Few people today are eager to have electrodes implanted in their brains. And the brain signals that the rats transmitted were relatively simplistic, so there's no guarantee that the technology would ever work for the transmission of anything as complex as abstract thoughts or memories.

Still, Frostig says the rat study creates exciting possibilities for future research. "We can't yet say how this will help people. But this is the first time that it's been proven that something like this can be done at all. I think it's wonderful."

[Caliga]

Monstrous.

[CountDeMoney]

I wish somebody would link Timmay's brain via tire iron.

[11B4V]

Finally Berkut and Grumbler can get a clue. Thank God....

[grumbler]

Finally Berkut and Grumbler can get a clue. Thank God....

  That shot sounds like it should be funny, but...

[KRonn]

Yep, this is freaky. Especially considering that it's just the very beginning of research into this kind of thing. Just wait until we have neural networks of humans all over the place someday in the far future!   

[Valmy]

Good.  I expect in 40 years we can move my brain into my new robot body.

Just out of curiousity anybody else think of the Cranium Rats from Planescape

[Darth Wagtaros]

The Warrior's bland acronym, MMI, obscures the true horror of
this monstrosity. Its inventors promise a new era of genius, but
meanwhile unscrupulous power brokers use its forcible installation
to violate the sanctity of unwilling human minds. They are
creating their own private army of demons.

-- Commissioner Pravin Lal,
"Report on Human Rights"

[11B4V]

Finally Berkut and Grumbler can get a clue. Thank God....

  That shot sounds like it should be funny, but...

[garbon]

Good.  I expect in 40 years we can move my brain into my new robot body.

[viper37]

Yep, this is freaky. Especially considering that it's just the very beginning of research into this kind of thing. Just wait until we have neural networks of humans all over the place someday in the far future!   

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