Brain–brain interface

Article summary

A brain–brain interface is a direct communication pathway between the brain of one animal and the brain of another animal. Brain to brain interfaces have been used to help rats collaborate with each other. When a second rat was unable to choose the correct lever, the first rat noticed (not getting a second reward), and produced a round of task-related neuron firing that made the second rat more likely to choose the correct lever. In 2013, Rajesh Rao was able to use electrical brain recordings and a form of magnetic stimulation to send a brain signal to Andrea Stocco on the other side of the University of Washington campus. In 2015, researchers linked up the brains of multiple monkeys in one experiment and rats in another to form an "organic computer". It is hypothesized that by using brain-to-brain interfaces (BTBIs) a biological computer, or brain-net, could be constructed using animal brains as its computational units. Initial exploratory work demonstrated collaboration between rats in distant cages linked by signals from cortical microelectrode arrays implanted in their brains. The rats were rewarded when actions were performed by the "decoding rat" which conformed to incoming signals and when signals were transmitted by the "encoding rat" which resulted in the desired action.…

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