Science Fiction-dream comes true: direct brain-to-brain communication

Thursday, February 28, 2013

Science Fiction-dream comes true: direct brain-to-brain communication

A rat in Brazil cooperates via brain signals that are transmitted via the Internet with a rat in the USA. Spooky action on a distance!

Although the rats do not know of each other's existence, they start to cooperate in doing simple visual and tactile tasks. Both rats have a chip implanted in the brain. The brain signal recorded in the brain of the 'encoder' rat are transmitted electronically to the brain of the 'decoder' rat.

This direct brain-to-brain communication is shown by prof. Miguel Nicolelis and his colleagues (Duke University (USA) & Edmond and Lily Safra International Institute for Neuroscience of Natal (Brazil)) in the online journal Nature Scientific Reports (Feb. 28, 2013).

Artist impression of the direct brain-tot-brain-communication between two rats

(Credit: Katie Zhuang, Laboratory of Dr. Miguel Nicolelis, Duke University)

With this experiment, an old Science Fiction-dream has come true: direct brain-to-brain communication. In the science fiction book Donovan's Brain (1942) the millionaire W.H. Donovan gets killed. However, just in time his brain is saved and kept working in a vat. This brain-in-a-vat gets more and more control over the mind of a physician. SF-writer Curt Siodmak lets the brains communicate via telepathy, but professor Miguel Nicolelis has now for the first time succeeded in real, direct brain-to-brain communication.

(Credit: Laboratory of Dr. Miguel Nicolelis, Duke University)

Watch the video to see and hear dr. Miguel Nicolelis describing the experiment.

My news story (in Dutch) about this research has appeared on March 1, in NRC Handelsblad. Hier alvast mijn bijdrage aan de website van NRC.

My private interview with prof. Nicolelis about his ground breaking work will later be published in the Dutch popular science monthly KIJK.

Internet
The Lab of Miguel Nicolelis: www.nicolelislab.net
The article in in Nature Scientific Reports: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep01319
Nature Scientific Reports: www.nature.com/srep/index.html

Honors and Awards

Nomination Eureka book Prize 2008
My book OPGELOST - Toepassingen van wiskunde en informatica (which translates as SOLVED - Applications of mathematics and informatics) was nominated for the Eureka book Prize 2008, for the best popular science book.

Amundsen Competition 2007
In december 2007 I was one of fourteen winners in the Amundsen Competition, an essay competiton organised by the World Federation of Science Journalists for the International Polar Year 2007/2008. The price is a two-weeks trip on board of the Arctic Polar Icebreaker ‘Amundsen’ to the North Pole Area (April 24 - May 8, 2008).

See my weblog: in Dutch or in English

Eureka!-award 2003 for the 2002-editorial board of Natuur & Techniek, for the best media achievement in the field of the public understanding of science in the Netherlands. I was part of the board at that time.

‘Friend of Poland’-award 2003 for two articles: a travel article about Krakow in the ANWB-monthly travel magazine Reizen (july/august 2002) and a biology-article on the primeval forest Bialowieza in the east of Poland, for the scientific monthly Natuur & Techniek (march 2003). The international contest for journalists was organised by Radio Polonia and the Polish Organisation for Tourism in Warsaw.

Quotes

The world looks so different after learning science

Richard Feynman

Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.

Richard Feynman

Wat is wetenschap? Wetenschap is de titanische poging van het menselijk intellect zich uit zijn kosmische isolement te verlossen door te begrijpen!

Professor Nummedal in de roman Nooit meer slapen van W.F. Hermans

We cook the facts. There are many different techniques for collecting, interpreting and analysing facts, and different techniques often lead to different conclusions, which is why scientists can disagree...When facts challenge our favoured conclusions, we scrutinize them more carefully and subject them to more rigourous analysis.

Psychologist Daniel Gilbert in Stumbling on happiness

The brain is wider than the sky,
For, put them side by side,
The one the other will include
With ease, and you beside.

Emily Dickinson

‘Who are YOU?’ said the Caterpillar. This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, ‘I – I hardly know, sir, just at present – at least I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.’

Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

Want de ruimte en hij die er vrij doorheen trekt, die zijn de enige ware, dat is het leven, en alles wat op een plaats is versteend en langzaam tot stof vergaat, is dood van den beginne af aan.

J. Slauerhoff

Don't see the world as a market, but rather a place that people live in - you are designing for people, not machines.

Red Burns

Van alle dingen die de mensheid zich sinds haar ontstaan eigen heeft gemaakt, is wetenschap verreweg de meest succesvolle en productieve.

Michio Kaku