Direct Brain-To-Brain Communication Used in Humans

Tapping directly into someone’s brain in order to share thoughts isn’t just for Spock anymore. An international team of researchers were able to replicate the Vulcan Mind Meld by creating a device that allows two people to share information through thought. The researchers tested the technology by separating the users over 8,000 km (5,000 mi) apart—with one user in France and the other in India. The paper has been published in PLOS ONE.

"We wanted to find out if one could communicate directly between two people by reading out the brain activity from one person and injecting brain activity into the second person, and do so across great physical distances by leveraging existing communication pathways," co-author Alvaro Pascual-Leone said in a press release.

"One such pathway is, of course, the internet, so our question became, 'Could we develop an experiment that would bypass the talking or typing part of internet and establish direct brain-to-brain communication between subjects located far away from each other in India and France?'"

The device connects directly to the users’ scalps and impulses from the sender were picked up via electroencephalogram (EEG) as well as by image-guided and robot-assisted transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). The signal was encoded and sent via the internet to the user on the other end. Once it reached its target destination, the code was then interpreted by a computer interface and delivered to the recipient.

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http://www.iflscience.com/brain/direct-brain-brain-communication-used-humans