Study shows brain interface between humans | Hacker News Reader

Study shows brain interface between humans

washington.edu

89 pointsUWNews33 comments

When I read "direct" I was not expecting head-mounted circuitry. This is indeed interesting, but it is not brain-to-brain communication. It is [brain] to [mesh] to [computer processing] to [mesh] to [brain] communication. Awesome, yes, but not telepathy. :)

That said, it is a "direct brain interface" in that the mesh interfaces directly with the brain.

Ok, we took "direct" out of the title.

So it appears that the device communicates from a signal from what they call is a "transcranial magnetic stimulation coil". But it also appears that the people doing the experiment have knowledge of the intended outcome. Therefore, I think that they are getting a simple headache and then firing the device. The most simplest double blind test would be to take someone off the street and see if they fire that as well. Apologize if they did this and I did not catch that in link/video.

I wonder how arguments between people would change if you could truly understand things from the other person's perspective. It would be interesting to say the least.

arguments? how about friendships?

Hold your horses :) We're talking about surface-level stimulation of neurons. It is huge leap to go from that to inner-level communication. Even if the physics were possible, what are the chances that the two people's neural structures would be compatible enough for a direct connection? Each person's memory at a particular region is almost certainly completely different. Would it even make sense to try to map signals in that way?

Yep there's zero chance direct communication will "just work". But with training, it seems possible. In the future primary schools will still teach standard reading and writing, but they will also teach standard thinking as a way to interface thoughts with computers in agreed-upon forms (words, voices, and images). Standard thinking will be different than everyday thinking, but it will still be as natural as speaking a thought.

You just need to find someone who is drift compatible.

Some conjoined twins can actually pass thoughts to each other through connected brain tissue. Since that is in no way planned, I'd reason that a link initiated while the brains in question have high plasticity would likely work.

I think it's most possible this would be used to control people (so no longer having to understand them or care about their emotions), than for genuine connection.

The press release kindly submitted here describes the experimental apparatus and protocol in reasonable detail, but acknowledges, "Researchers found that accuracy varied among the pairs, ranging from 25 to 83 percent." That means the method still needs a lot of work. The lab has strong external funding, it appears, and we should keep an eye on what further results it announces that are examined by independent science journalists.

But this is a press release, so it will tend to have favorable spin to keep the funding flowing. Many, many submissions to HN are based at bottom on press releases, and press releases are well known for spinning preliminary research findings beyond all recognition. This has been commented on in the PhD comic "The Science News Cycle,"[1] which only exaggerates the process a very little. Not all press releases spin their statements as badly as the worst examples, but all of them should be compared to independent sources for a second opinion.

The most sure and certain finding of any preliminary study will be that more research is needed. All too often, preliminary findings don't lead to further useful discoveries in science, because the preliminary findings are flawed. The obligatory link for any discussion of a report on a research result like the one kindly submitted here is the article "Warning Signs in Experimental Design and Interpretation"[2] by Peter Norvig, director of research at Google, on how to interpret scientific research. Check each news story you read for how many of the important issues in interpreting research are NOT discussed in the story.

[1] "The Science News Cycle" http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1174

[2] "Warning Signs in Experimental Design and Interpretation" http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html

AFTER EDIT: Feel free to let me know what you disagree about here (assuming that an early downvote was made to indicate disagreement). I don't have a direct brain-to-brain connection with anyone else on Hacker News, so I can't always be sure what people mean by how they click on posts.

They were expanding on preliminary research they did a year ago. The accuracy problem was on the 'visualization' end apparently, not the transfer/reproduction end. It's really not spun beyond recognition, just early days for this type of research.

In the video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRsx5egJoYk) at 1:22, when they demonstrate it, the receiver is pressing a keyboard and not a touch pad like the speaker voice says earlier in the video.

The fact that they say "touch pad" made me believe that they actually were able to transfer coordinates.

I wonder if the receiving participants really felt "compelled" to move their hand or if instead they learned to recognise the "fire" signal over time and deliberately acted upon it. It could have felt like a more distinct buzz than other random signals received in between two firings. Not sure if I'm making sense...

It sounds like you're asking whether "minds" are communicating or whether one mind is simply controlling the motor parts of another body.

The latter makes me uncomfortable, but this is just another reminder that we are probably[1] machines after all.

[1] I don't want to start a determinism/free will debate. I don't think I've actually seen any sort of debates on HN, but just in case.

You haven't. Any undergrad philosophy class would have taught you debating the topic is fruitless.

Also, define machine.

Though there's no answer in the video, the classic demonstration of TMS (Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation) you'll find in an intro to brain imaging class is to trigger sections of brain containing the motor neurons. This creates involuntary movement in the muscles of your body, rather than any kind of information you would process willfully act upon. Given the mention of placing the TMS paddle on the opposite hemisphere of the brain from the subject's arm, it's plausible that they are actually just aiming at the motor neurons.

If the TMS causing a twitch is existing textbook knowledge, then are they doing anything new at all? Reading some kind of signal from a trained person's brain is also already commonplace.

The page is not found for me.

Same here... anyone got a mirror?

As usual, Google does: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...

Same, getting a 404: Not Found

The requested URL /cms/news/2014/11/05/uw-study-shows-direct-brain-interface-between-humans/ was not found on this server. Apache/2.2.22 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.22 OpenSSL/0.9.8e-fips-rhel5 DAV/2 PHP/5.3.13 mod_pubcookie/3.3.4a mod_uwa/3.2.1 mod_transform/0.7.0 mod_apreq2-20090110/2.7.1 Server at cmswp.s.uw.edu Port 80

Is it one-way or two-way ?

If one-way, the next interesting thing would be to record and playback the signal.

Once we're able to record and playback, there are many possibilities because it can also be transmitted anywhere and even to multiple receivers, thus having a new medium of communication.

This means direct brain interface to computer which means the technology for the matrix is here, albeit not yet solid, but hey, pretty cool. Once upon a time, we had nothing but 4bit computers with 128bytes, and here we are today, in about 40-50years.

Possibly. But it seems to me to hinge upon whether surface-level signals can convey the information of interest. How deep is the cortex and how far in can we detect signals? What kind of resolution is practical or even possible in theory? I would imagine the electromagnetics get fairly fuzzy fast, depending on your time resolution.

Interferometry in the RADAR bands allows you to penetrate the cranium and reflect back the neuronal correlates of consciousness. These signals can be decoded into your inner monologue and emotions.

This is the latest rave in Silicon Valley (which used to be called Microwave Valley!). Well... not the latest, they've been working on it for decades. <:)

ok, that is a bit creepy. Wondering when the bandwidth gets to the point where you can send multivalued data.

Do you think bandwidth is a limiting factor here in practice? FiOS, for example, has plans ranging from 25 to 75 M bits/sec.

My impression is that having a sensing apparatus to sense and process would be more of a limiting factor. A skull sensor that detects, say 20K neurons, with 1 ms resolution would only use 20M bits/sec.

With 20Mbits you would get only 1bit resolution, and since we're talking about analog data that's not enough. If we went to 12bit ADC we would need 320Mbits/sec.

You make a good point about needing more bits of resolution, but that's only a factor of ~10. I admit that I don't know the limits of the current sensors and rest of the system, but my guess is that they are not at the point where they are maxing out the bandwidth.

I expect that a full-bandwidth continuous surface-level brain scan would exceed traditional bandwidth.

The bandwidth of TMS is extremely low and limited by physics. To get high bandwidth, you'd need implantable devices for stimulating small groups of neurons, which is possible today, but not ethical with human subjects.

>Sometimes, words just complicate things. What if our brains could communicate directly with each other, bypassing the need for language?

In other words: why not let a future government implant directions and orders directly to the citizenry?

crazy

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