Pinky and the Brain

In a story reminiscent of the cartoon Pinky and The Brain, scientists have created a brain-to-brain interface system that essentially allows lab rats to communicate across thousands of miles.

Published in the journal Scientific Reports, the research conducted at Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina saw two rats given wired brain implants. The implants allowed sensory and motor signals to be sent from one animal to another, and the study found that the other animal was able to correctly interpret the signals it received.

Speaking to the BBC’s Science in Action programme, Professor Miguel Nicolelis said: “Until recently we used to record this brain activity and send it to a computer … and the [computer] tells us what the animal is going to do.

“So we reasoned, if we can do that with a computer, could another brain do that?”

The practice still needs some fine tuning but the trials that were conducted saw the decoder rat achieve a maximum success rate of 70 per cent, clearly enough to demonstrate that the developments enable the animals to communicate in this way.

Professor Nicolelis suggested that the idea could eventually be developed into something that allows people to communicate without the need for physical phones or keyboards. “We will have a way to exchange information across millions of people without using keyboards or voice recognition devices or the type of interfaces that we normally use today,” he explained. “I truly believe that in a few decades … we will know what it is to communicate in this way.”