Think Mind Control Is Science Fiction? Think Again (+Video)
Scientists have figured out how to use our brainwaves for everything from racing drones to restoring the function of paralyzed limbs.
Evan Thomas | April 26, 2016
Researchers are getting better at harnessing brain signals. These days, you can strap on a headset and control a drone with nothing but your thoughts.
"We have a computer program that you look at. We tell you, 'Think forward. Think about pushing a chair forward.' So we learn to navigate the drone based on your brain patterns for specific things you're thinking about," said University of Florida's Juan Gilbert.
And as mind-reading gets easier, there are more and more things that can be mind-controlled.
"In this photo, UW students Darby Losey, left, and Jose Ceballos are positioned in two different buildings on campus as they would be during a brain-to-brain interface demonstration. The sender, left, thinks about firing a cannon at various points throughout a computer game. That signal is sent over the Web directly to the brain of the receiver, right, whose hand hits a touchpad to fire the cannon." Source: http://www.washington.edu/news/2014/11/05/uw-study-shows-direct-brain-interface-between-humans/ |
<more at: http://www.newsy.com/videos/we-re-getting-better-and-better-at-controlling-stuff-with-our-minds/; related articles and links: http://www.washington.edu/news/2014/11/05/uw-study-shows-direct-brain-interface-between-humans/ (UW study shows direct brain interface between humans. November 5, 2014) and http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0111332 (A Direct Brain-to-Brain Interface in Humans. Rajesh P. N. Rao, Andrea Stocco, Matthew Bryan, Devapratim Sarma, Tiffany M. Youngquist, Joseph Wu, and Chantel S. Prat. PLOS ONE. Published: November 5, 2014. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0111332. [Abstract: We describe the first direct brain-to-brain interface in humans and present results from experiments involving six different subjects. Our non-invasive interface, demonstrated originally in August 2013, combines electroencephalography (EEG) for recording brain signals with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) for delivering information to the brain. We illustrate our method using a visuomotor task in which two humans must cooperate through direct brain-to-brain communication to achieve a desired goal in a computer game. The brain-to-brain interface detects motor imagery in EEG signals recorded from one subject (the “sender”) and transmits this information over the internet to the motor cortex region of a second subject (the “receiver”). This allows the sender to cause a desired motor response in the receiver (a press on a touchpad) via TMS. We quantify the performance of the brain-to-brain interface in terms of the amount of information transmitted as well as the accuracies attained in (1) decoding the sender’s signals, (2) generating a motor response from the receiver upon stimulation, and (3) achieving the overall goal in the cooperative visuomotor task. Our results provide evidence for a rudimentary form of direct information transmission from one human brain to another using non-invasive means.])
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