The ambiguities of the brain have been studied over the years, as researchers search for the secrets of its operation. One such research project has recently culminated in a revolutionary technological breakthrough, with implications for both the vast, unexplored territory of neuroscience and the field of medical ethics. Medical ethics has delved into alternative reproductive techniques with vigor, but it is possible that the new wave of neuro-scientific technologies will avert the attention of skeptics, primarily because of its newness.
Rajesh Rao, engineer of the brain-interfacing apparatus, sat in his lab on August 12, 2013, wearing a cap with electrodes hooked up to a machine that measures electrical activity in the brain. Stocco, the other research participant, sat in his own laboratory across campus, wearing a purple swim cap with a magnetic stimulation coil that was placed directly over the part of the brain that controls hand movement— the motor cortex.
Rao began the brain interfacing process by looking at a computer screen and playing a video game—but only with his mind. When he was supposed to fire cannon at a target, he only imagined moving his right hand hitting the “fire” button with the cursor. Almost instantaneously, Stocco, who wore noise-canceling ear buds and wasn’t even looking at a computer screen, involuntarily moved his right index finger to push the space bar in front of him, as if he were firing the cannon in Rao’s game.
How can this unnatural phenomenon be explained?
Though this may seem the stuff of sci-fi relics, a ground-breaking discovery was made this past August when researches at the University of Washington performed the first noninvasive human to human brain interface. During the interface, one researcher sent brain signals to control the hand motions of another researcher in a separate room via the internet.
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According to Stocco, this groundbreaking technology shows a major progression in the use of technology. “…The internet was a way to connect computers, and now it can be a way to connect brain. We want to take the knowledge of the brain and transmit it directly from brain to brain.”
The mechanism behind this technique is actually rooted in machines that are used on a daily basis by medical professionals. Both Electroencephalography (EEG) and Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) are already well-known and used routinely by clinicians and researchers—EEG is used to record brain activity from the scalp, and TMS is a way of delivering stimulation to the brain to elicit a response. Both processes are noninvasive.
The surface layer of the brain, the cerebral cortex, is divided into sections that are each responsible for a specific function. By placing the TMS coil on different parts of the brain, different neurons will activate and produce a due response. In this case, the coil was placed directly over the brain region that controls a person’s right hand, which is why Stocco’s brain automatically registered the stimulation and commanded a response to move his right hand.
Though brain-to-brain interfacing has never been accomplished until now, researchers at Duke University have demonstrated brain communication between two rats, while researchers at Harvard were able to show interfacing between a human and a rat. Still, Stocco and Rao’s technology can only read certain kinds of brain signals—and not a person’s thoughts.
Should a tentative “yet” be punctuated at the end of that sentence? Will there come a day in the near future when esoteric, intangible thoughts will be coded into data? Will researchers be able to quantify and manipulate our thoughts and find a way to form brain communication involving not just motor actions, but also the simulation of certain feelings? Even memories?
According to Juan Enriquez, founding director of the Harvard Business school life-sciences project, the answer is an emphatic yes. He says that researchers at MIT are currently attempting to tag a retrovirus with fluorescent markers to map out the exact pathways that are stimulated when a mouse sees, feels, touches, remembers, and loves. These emotions can be imaged in two colors, meaning that they can actually download this information as binary code directly into a computer. He believes that it’s not inconceivable that someday people will be able to download their own memories, perhaps even into a different body. And that maybe, people will be able to upload other people’s memories as well.
Even President Obama is willing to invest in projects that are this… well, cool. He’s announced a one-billion dollar effort to unlock the mysteries of the human brain.