Researchers achieve brain-to-brain communication

Researchers claim to have figured out a non-invasive way to achieve computer-assisted brain-to-brain communication.

According to their paper in Plos One, the researchers used internet-linked electroencephalographic (EEG) and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) technologies to link four people in Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala state, India), and Strasbourg, France.

On the French side of the study, three people acted as information receivers, and were stimulated with biphasic TMS pulses at a subject-specific occipital cortex site.

The forth subject in India acted as an emitter. He visualised moving his arms and legs to send 0 or 1 to a computer, which it translated into words.

The result?

"Streams of pseudo-random bits representing the words “hola” and “ciao” were successfully transmitted mind-to-mind between human subjects separated by a great distance, with a negligible probability of this happening by chance," the researchers wrote.

Or to put it another way - they managed to get one person in India to transmit understandable thoughts to three people in France - without needing any invasive surgery.

The technology is still at a very early stage - but the researchers believe that it could open doors to a whole new era of communication.

"The widespread use of human brain-to-brain technologically mediated communication will create novel possibilities for human interrelation with broad social implications that will require new ethical and legislative responses,"  the researchers wrote.