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Thursday, April 28, 2016

Mind Control?

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.

An example of how the brain to brain interface demonstration would look.
"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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