The brains of two rats have been
connected over a long distance, creating an artificial communication channel
between the two animals.What do you think?
(February 28, 2013) Scientists studying brain-machine interfaces
at the Nicolelis Lab have demonstrated that the real-time transfer of
sensory-motor brain signals from a rat in Natal, Brazil to another in Durham,
N.C. leads both rats to make similar behavioral selections. The researchers
used a brain-to-brain interface, allowing the visual and motor signals of one
brain to be transmitted directly to the other. These results give further
support to the notion that the brain is capable of processing additional
signals from unconventional sources.What do you think?
“The study underscores the
brain’s ability to find and exploit regularities between neural patterns of
activity, and to use them to increase the rate of reward—even if the thing
that’s doing the transduction... is derived from the activity of another
animal,” said Marshall Shuler, assistant professor of neuroscience at Johns
Hopkins University