Miguel Nicolelis, a neurobiologist at Duke pioneering brainet
research, had earlier that year connected monkey brains. These monkey brains
worked together to move virtual monkey arms. Ecstatic with the success of his
monkey brains, Nicolelis transitioned to rats, an easier medium, more dispensable,
in continued research.
A researcher at Duke university connected four brains of rats
that were alive with electrodes. He was able to turn this into a functional
computer. This organic computer, or brainet, solved problems better than any-one
rat could alone. The key was brain communication or telepathy.
The puzzle was water access. The four rat brains were able
to communicate telepathically through crude connection by some electrodes. If
three out of the four thirsty rats were able to collectively synchronize their
brainwaves, water was given to all four rats. Soon enough rats learned to
synchronized their neuron firing, or whatever that means in rat language, maybe
all think the same thing at the same time, and got their reward, clean water.
It is estimated with technological advances, the electrodes
will be replaced with a non-invasive, assisting the telepathy were know aliens
posses. Will humans ever communicate telepathically to form a
hive-mind? Maybe? Maybe then Magnus Carlsen, or some hacker, will rule the
world. But hey, learning would be so much easier, in fact it might be instant,
after all I can just take the answers right out of my teacher’s brain.
Posted by “Takoda Nordoff” (3)
Wow this is really intriguing. I am curious as to what caused the scientist to start with monkeys and then move to rats as I feel like that is not a common transition. I also wonder about the likelihood of this working on humans and then what this could mean for future advancements. What do you think the chances of this progressing to humans are?
ReplyDeleteAlexandra McGuire
I think perhaps rats are more dispensable for lab sacrificing. Maybe the guy has a moral compass and does not wanna sacrifice something that is capable of deeper thought, or maybe he just wants to save money. Also the research for this field is still young, and rat brains would probably suffice for the level of complexity of the experiments. Maybe as the research gets increasingly complicated, and closer to human application, monkeys will be sacrificed once more.
DeletePosted by "Takoda Nordoff"
This is wild! That's not some simple, easy thing to do. You have to wonder about how people would control for all the privacy concerns that come up... Credit card info, social security numbers, and any other sensitive information would become trivial to access -- just take it right from their brain. We would all be like He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named to Harry Potter... though hopefully not evil. We could just pop into each other's brains...
ReplyDeleteWhat's the next step in making this a reality for making this transferable to humans? Also how would we be able to connect to some non-invasive thing without wires? It's not like with electronics where you can connect to bluetooth...
Chandler Kupris
This is incredible and alarming at all the same time. This finding provides insight on our ability to control our own brain function as well as communicate with others brains directly. As for use in humans, this seems like something out of a sci-fi movie! Do you think that in the wrong hands, this technology could cause some serious damage or are there enough regulations in place to prevent a massive brain take over?
ReplyDeletePosted by Jamie Downer
While this is a really interesting concept, I wonder what the success rates of the study were? Along with this, what are the potential implications of this kind of crude brain connection? Could there be potentially harmful repercussions to this type of methodology?
ReplyDeletePosted by Lauren Hiller
I think the brainet succeeded about 85 percent of the time whereas single brains succeeded close to 20 percent of the time. Perhaps a repercussion would be disconnecting from each other's thoughts. They should have done a study where they tried to disconnect the brainet and measure the cognition of each rat afterward to see if there was any changes in their thought patterns after their telepathy. Perhaps they could remember things other rats knew after their disconnect. Perhaps also after the disconnect their thinking becomes more similar.
DeletePublished by "Takoda Nordoff"
Interesting read. I especially enjoyed the last sentence! Is this being tested in other ways or just the ways you've mentioned? I'd love to read more on the subject.
ReplyDeletePosted by Josha Cruz
These experiments mostly just scare me. Have you seen Planet of the Apes? Is there any chance that this hive mind could develop a sentience of its own?
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