Researchers Demonstrate Direct Brain-to-Brain Communication in Humans

In the first-of-its-kind study, an international team of neuroscientists and robotics engineers have demonstrated the viability of direct brain-to-brain communication in humans. The study, recently published in PLOS ONE, describes the findings from the successful transmission of information via the Internet between the intact scalps of two human subjects — located 5,000 miles apart. In the neuroscientific equivalent of instant messaging, the international research team successfully transmitted the words “hola” and “ciao” in a computer-mediated brain-to-brain transmission from a location in India to a location in France, using Internet-linked electroencephalogram (EEG) and robot-assisted and image-guided transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) technologies. Previous studies on EEG-base brain-computer interaction (BCI) have typically made use of communication between a human brain and computer. In this study, the researchers added a second human brain on the other end of the system. Using EEG, the research team first translated the greeting “hola” and “ciao” into binary code and then emailed the results from India to France. There, a computer-brain interface transmitted the message to the receiver’s brain through non-invasive brain stimulation. The subjects experienced this as phosphenes, or flashes of light in their peripheral vision. The light appeared in numerical sequences that enabled the receiver to decode the information in the message. While the participants did not report feeling anything, they did correctly receive the greetings. To read more about this study, click here.