Modern technologies of "reading" brain waves are already used almost everywhere, from control of helicopters by the "power of thought" to computer games. However, now technology has gone even further: a researcher from India sent a letter to his colleague in France, using his own mind and only a small amount of common technology, that is, almost telepathically.
Scientists used a headset to take electroencephalograms (EEG). It was needed to record the electrical activity of neurons in the brain and convert the words Hola ("Hello") and Ciao ("Goodbye") into binary code.
Using EEG technology, researchers have learned to correlate electrical currents in the brain with various thoughts. This information is transmitted to the computer interface. The machine analyzes the signal and controls the action. However, in the course of this study, it was decided to replace the computer interface for receiving signals with another brain (previously, neurologists did this only with animals).
During the experiment, a greeting was sent by a volunteer from Thiruvananthapuram (India) to Strasbourg (France). There, the computer "translated" the message and then used electrical stimulation to transmit the thoughts to the owner of the brain-implanted receiver. The message appeared as a flash of light in the corner of the recipient's vision.
The light appeared in a sequence that allowed the recipient to decode the message information. The researchers then conducted a similar experiment in which thoughts were successfully transferred from Spain to France.
In the second experiment, the total share of errors was only 15%: 5% were made at the encoding stage and about 10% at the decoding stage.
In France, a computer translated the message and then showed it to the recipient with electrical stimulation.
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This technology was developed through a collaboration between the University of Barcelona, Axilum Robotics in France, Harvard Medical School and Starlab Barcelona. According to the researchers, this is the first time that humans have managed to send a message almost directly from one brain to another.
We expect that in the not too distant future, the human brain will interact directly with computers, according to the authors of the project.
This technology is rapidly gaining momentum. For example, in May 2014, German scientists showed how pilots were able to control the control of an aircraft with amazing accuracy, and in June 2014, researchers from Oregon demonstrated a device that can read a person's mind in real time.
A scientific article about this research was published in the PLoS ONE edition.