In a breakthrough that sounds like science fiction, scientists have successfully transmitted thoughts from one human brain to another thousands of kilometers away via the internet. International research teams have made significant progress in the field of mind control in recent months, with German researchers having previously flown a plane using only their thoughts, and American scientists having successfully transmitted thoughts from one rat to another in 2013. Now, humans have joined the ranks of mind-to-mind communication.
Until now, the challenge has been to create an interface that allows thoughts to be transmitted directly from one human brain to another. However, Carles Grau and his colleagues at Starlab Barcelona have taken the next step and proven that humans are capable of communicating directly from brain to brain. In their experiment, the brainwaves of a subject in the Indian city of Thiruvananthapuram were captured using an electrode cap and digitally encoded on a computer. The words “Hola” and “Ciao” were then converted into binary code and transmitted via the internet to a recipient in Strasbourg, France. Using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), the words were then transmitted to the recipient’s brain via a magnetic coil placed on their skull.
The experiment was repeated with two other subjects, all of whom were able to receive the words from India with a maximum error rate of 15%. The researchers report that “this experiment shows that brain-to-brain communication is possible in humans” and that “the messages were transmitted without speaking or writing.” This breakthrough demonstrates the potential of the human brain and the possibility of more intensive communication between computers and the human brain in the future. It is likely that direct communication from brain to brain will become commonplace in the coming years.
