Some things can be hard to put into words, like feelings. Imagine if we could transfer complicated knowledge from the brain of a teacher to a student without having to find the right words? This may seem like something out of science fiction but last year University of Washington researchers revealed preliminary work showing that rudimentary brain-to-brain communication is possible. They have now refined this brain-to-brain communication technology, reporting in PloS ONE on the first safe and non-invasive method of decoding intentions from a human sender and transferring them to a human receiver over the internet.



Over the course of three months, three pairs of participants completed brain-to-brain interface experiments. Communication between sender and receiver were tested by their ability to collaborate in the video game task of firing a cannon to destroy a rocket before it reaches the city, while sitting in different buildings half a mile apart. To collaborate, the sender, watching the videogame, thinks about moving their hand to ‘fire the cannon’, producing an electrocephalography (EEG) pattern. The receiver cannot see the videogame but the sender’s EEG information is transferred over the internet to the receiver’s computer. Upon receipt of the signal, the receiver’s computer induces transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) through a swim cap, causing their hand to move and fire the cannon, at the right time to destroy the rockets. Results varied between participant pairs which were successful 83.3%, 25.0% and 37.5% of the time.



The researchers indicated that brain-to-brain interfaces of the near future will transmit motor, visual and auditory information but that we do not yet know enough about how the brain works to transfer abstract thoughts between people any time soon. The authors suggest that it is the time to discuss ethical, moral and society implications of brain-to-brain interface technology.