Device lets humans control rat's movements with their brains
By QMI Agency
This week in terrifying scientific breakthroughs, researchers at Harvard have created a brain-to-brain interface that allows humans to make a rat move involuntarily with the power of their thoughts.
The device, which comes weeks after neuroscientists in Brazil unveiled an device that linked one rat's brain to another's, could be the first step in creating technology to remotely control another person's limbs with your mind.
Seung-Schik Yoo and his colleagues anaesthetized a rat and hooked it up to a device that focuses ultrasound to its motor cortex. Human subjects wore electroencephalograph headgear, which collects signals and transmits them to the rat via a computer interface.
When the people focused on moving the rat's tail, it moved.
The scientists hope to develop technology that could link two human brains.
Called "neural coupling," they say it could be used to help with physiotherapy and "may have a positive impact on human social behaviour."
A researcher holds a rat with sensors attached to its brain in this file photo. (REUTERS FILES/Aly Song)
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Science/2013/04/04/20711386.html
WTF? Ok, so someone with a logical scientific mind (Tonnington I'm looking in your direction) is going to have to explain to me what could possibly be the beneficial end result of something like this. Especially the "positive impact on human social behaviour" part.
By QMI Agency
This week in terrifying scientific breakthroughs, researchers at Harvard have created a brain-to-brain interface that allows humans to make a rat move involuntarily with the power of their thoughts.
The device, which comes weeks after neuroscientists in Brazil unveiled an device that linked one rat's brain to another's, could be the first step in creating technology to remotely control another person's limbs with your mind.
Seung-Schik Yoo and his colleagues anaesthetized a rat and hooked it up to a device that focuses ultrasound to its motor cortex. Human subjects wore electroencephalograph headgear, which collects signals and transmits them to the rat via a computer interface.
When the people focused on moving the rat's tail, it moved.
The scientists hope to develop technology that could link two human brains.
Called "neural coupling," they say it could be used to help with physiotherapy and "may have a positive impact on human social behaviour."
A researcher holds a rat with sensors attached to its brain in this file photo. (REUTERS FILES/Aly Song)
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Science/2013/04/04/20711386.html
WTF? Ok, so someone with a logical scientific mind (Tonnington I'm looking in your direction) is going to have to explain to me what could possibly be the beneficial end result of something like this. Especially the "positive impact on human social behaviour" part.
