Researchers connect brain subjects via http

Researchers have managed to connect the brains of various subjects via http. As a result, one subject could think of firing a cannon in a game, after which the other subject’s hand actually did it.

A regular eeg registered the assignments given by test subjects, after which the signal was sent via http to another test subject, who received the signals in a blind room by means of a helmet. The transmitter was watching a computer game, but the gun was controlled by another test subject, who did not see the game. However, he had to press the button to fire a cannon. Signals were sent and received via computers.

The movement is possible because the command stimulates the motor cortex of the recipient’s brain. This part of the brain is responsible for controlling the muscles. The brain of the second subject was stimulated with transcranial magnetic stimulation. With this technique, the person is given a kind of helmet, with which the stimulation can penetrate through the skull. Ultimately, the system caused the second test subject to involuntarily move his finger on a keyboard.

That did not always go well, according to research by researchers at the University of Washington in the United States, which was published in the scientific journal Plos One. In a few test subjects, it went well in 83 percent of the cases, but in another couple it worked in only a quarter of the cases.

According to the researchers, it is the first time that someone could directly send a signal with a command to the brain of another person, although the same researchers already did a test last year. According to the scientists, the next steps are to enable brain-to-brain communication from one person to many people, or vice versa: that many people can give assignments to one person.