Got this news from BBC Radio Science Unit by Jen Whyntie
They found a way to how to make rats directly communicate to one another via cables. What these scientists did is that they placed implants on the rats’ brains and they tested whether the rats could interpret the signals that they are making to one another.
Professor Miguel Nicolelis and his team at Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina further developed their study and wanted to test whether they could finally establish a new medium where animals could communicate miles apart.
“Until recently we used to record this brain activity and send it to a computer… and the [computer] tells us what the animal is going to do,” Prof Nicolelis told the BBC’s Science in Action programme.
“So we reasoned, if we can do that with a computer, could another brain do that?”
This is why they did a water reward test. They have 2 rats that they trained for problem solving. These rats were placed in separate chambers and microelectrodes are the only thing connecting their brains (cortex which processes motor information).
One rat is designated the “encoder”, who will receive a visual clue, the other is the “decoder”, who will not. Image from: http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/66109000/gif/_66109740_01_rat_brain_expt_464.gif
These rats need to press the correct lever to get the water reward. What happened is that one rat acts as the encoder and the other one acts as a decoder. the decoder rat will have to rely on the que transmitted by the encoder rat to unlock the water. These rats were successful for about 70% of the time.
This could lead to possibly humans transmitting information to one another thousand of miles apart without the need of a keyboard only by using their brain.
“We will have a way to exchange information across millions of people without using keyboards or voice recognition devices or the type of interfaces that we normally use today,” he said.
“I truly believe that in a few decades… we will know what it is to communicate in that way.”
They just need to find a non invasive way to apply this if they ever plan to share between human brains.
Read More: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21604005
March 1, 2013 at 10:33 am
Reblogged this on CUSTOM BALLERS and commented:
They found a way to how to make rats directly communicate to one another via cables. What these scientists did is that they placed implants on the rats’ brains and they tested whether the rats could interpret the signals that they are making to one another.
Professor Miguel Nicolelis and his team at Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina further developed their study and wanted to test whether they could finally establish a new medium where animals could communicate miles apart.
“Until recently we used to record this brain activity and send it to a computer… and the [computer] tells us what the animal is going to do,” Prof Nicolelis told the BBC’s Science in Action programme.
“So we reasoned, if we can do that with a computer, could another brain do that?”
This is why they did a water reward test. They have 2 rats that they trained for problem solving. These rats were placed in separate chambers and microelectrodes are the only thing connecting their brains (cortex which processes motor information).
One rat is designated the “encoder”, who will receive a visual clue, the other is the “decoder”, who will not. Image from: http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/66109000/gif/_66109740_01_rat_brain_expt_464.gif
These rats need to press the correct lever to get the water reward. What happened is that one rat acts as the encoder and the other one acts as a decoder. the decoder rat will have to rely on the que transmitted by the encoder rat to unlock the water. These rats were successful for about 70% of the time.
This could lead to possibly humans transmitting information to one another thousand of miles apart without the need of a keyboard only by using their brain.
“We will have a way to exchange information across millions of people without using keyboards or voice recognition devices or the type of interfaces that we normally use today,” he said.
“I truly believe that in a few decades… we will know what it is to communicate in that way.”
They just need to find a non invasive way to apply this if they ever plan to share between human brains.
Read More: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21604005