Human Brain-to-Brain Interface Allows One Person to Control Another Person's Movements (VIDEO)

What if we could communicate to one another without speaking? What if we could simply communicate using our brains? Scientists are working on just that and have now successfully replicated a direct brain-to-brain connection between pairs of people.

"The new study brings our brain-to-brain interfacing paradigm from an initial demonstration to something that is closer to a deliverable technology," said Andrea Stocco, co-author of the new study, in a news release. "Now we have replicated our methods and know that they can work reliably with walk-in participants."

During the course of their experiments, the scientists combined two kinds of noninvasive instruments and fine-tuned software in order to connect two human brains in real time. One volunteer was hooked up to an electroencephalography machine that read brain activity and sent electrical pulses via the Internet to the second participants, who was wearing a swim cap with a transcranial magnetic stimulation coil placed near the part of the brain that controls hand movements. Using this setup, the first person could send a command to move the hand of the second person simply by thinking about that hand movement.

The experiment itself involved three pairs of participants. Each pair included a sender and a receiver with different roles and constraints. In addition, the pairs were separated in different buildings about half a mile apart, and could only interact via the link between their brains.

Accuracy of the "message" sent varied among the pairs, ranging from 25 to 83 percent accuracy. Misses were mostly due to a sending failing to accurately execute the thought to send the command for the hand to move.

Currently, the scientists are planning to expand the types of information that can be transferred from brain to brain, including more complex visual and psychological phenomena, such as concepts, thoughts and rules. In fact, the researchers believe that the project could eventually lead to "brain tutoring" to transfer knowledge directly from one person to another.

"Imagine someone who's a brilliant scientist but not a brilliant teacher," said Chantel Prat, co-author of the new study. "Complex knowledge is hard to explain-we're limited by language."

The findings are published in the journal PLOS One.

Want to learn more? Check out the video below, courtesy of YouTube.