Abstract
(July 9, 2015) Recently,
we proposed that Brainets, i.e. networks formed by multiple animal brains,
cooperating and exchanging information in real time through direct
brain-to-brain interfaces, could provide the core of a new type of computing
device: an organic computer. Here, we describe the first experimental
demonstration of such a Brainet, built by interconnecting four adult rat
brains. Brainets worked by concurrently recording the extracellular electrical
activity generated by populations of cortical neurons distributed across
multiple rats chronically implanted with multi-electrode arrays. Cortical
neuronal activity was recorded and analyzed in real time, and then delivered to
the somatosensory cortices of other animals that participated in the Brainet
using intracortical microstimulation (ICMS). Using this approach, different
Brainet architectures solved a number of useful computational problems, such as
discrete classification, image processing, storage and retrieval of tactile
information, and even weather forecasting. Brainets consistently performed at
the same or higher levels than single rats in these tasks. Based on these
findings, we propose that Brainets could be used to investigate animal social
behaviors as well as a test bed for exploring the properties and potential
applications of organic computers.
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