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posted by cmn32480 on Saturday July 11 2015, @11:44AM   Printer-friendly
from the dr-frankensteins-laboratory dept.

Duke University neuroscientists have linked the brains of three rhesus macaque monkeys together using a brain-to-brain interface:

The neural network created, which the researchers call a 'Brainet', lets the animals share both sensory and motor information with one another, enabling them to complete tasks via their collective thoughts. This means they could potentially outperform a regular brain, because they now have access to the resources of a hive mind.

"Essentially, we created a super-brain," Miguel Nicolelis, the lead author of the study, told Hannah Devlin at The Guardian. "A collective brain created from three monkey brains. Nobody has ever done that before."

In the monkeys experiment, the researchers wired together three rhesus macaque monkeys and implanted receptors in their motor and somatosensory cortices to capture and transmit the brain activity. Once connected, the three monkeys were able to control the movements of a virtual avatar's arm on a computer screen in front of them. Each monkey had control over only two dimensions of movement, requiring the concentration of at least two of the three animals to successfully move the arm.

A separate experiment linked four rat brains together. From the abstract:

Cortical neuronal activity was recorded and analyzed in real time, and then delivered to the somatosensory cortices of other animals that participated in the Brainet using intracortical microstimulation (ICMS). Using this approach, different Brainet architectures solved a number of useful computational problems, such as discrete classification, image processing, storage and retrieval of tactile information, and even weather forecasting. Brainets consistently performed at the same or higher levels than single rats in these tasks. Based on these findings, we propose that Brainets could be used to investigate animal social behaviors as well as a test bed for exploring the properties and potential applications of organic computers.


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  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday July 11 2015, @03:01PM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Saturday July 11 2015, @03:01PM (#207886) Journal

    You currently have to get your skull cut open to have a useful amount of communication between brain and computer. Noninvasive electrodes are too limited. Humans, the other primate, sometimes get this type of invasive procedure done... if they are paralyzed. I doubt the surgical installation of the brain-computer interface caused much pain, or is as invasive as you think. The electronics required have gotten a lot smaller, and it's not hard to envision a version that uses nanobots [nextbigfuture.com] that are pervasive [extremetech.com], but not invasive. Before nanobots/nanodust, these electronics could be injected [kurzweilai.net] instead.

    With that out of the way, what about the ethics of using non-human primates, rats, pigs, dogs, etc. for (valuable) science experiments? Well, beyond the immediacy of the pain caused, they don't understand what's happening and can't object to it. Not unless you bioengineer a "sapient" animal or something. And they don't have real "rights". They were bred to be used, and the scientific pursuit of knowledge is far more useful than slaughter for meat. Given your apparent compassion for animals, is it safe for me to assume you have been converted to vegetarian/veganism? Or at least some form of "humane" slaughter?

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  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 11 2015, @03:16PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 11 2015, @03:16PM (#207891)

    Thank you for volunteering for the human experiment subjects for science group!

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Saturday July 11 2015, @03:28PM

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Saturday July 11 2015, @03:28PM (#207894) Journal

      Overlooking your juvenile response: unlike animals, humans can and do volunteer to become experimental subjects. Animals don't have the right to protest their use in experiments.

      Have you given up all meat yet?

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  • (Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday July 11 2015, @03:30PM

    by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Saturday July 11 2015, @03:30PM (#207895) Homepage

    The brain itself feels no pain.

    • (Score: 1) by blackhawk on Saturday July 11 2015, @03:38PM

      by blackhawk (5275) on Saturday July 11 2015, @03:38PM (#207898)

      Cool, so you don't mind if I just start hacking around at random in your brain then?

      • (Score: 3, Funny) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday July 11 2015, @03:43PM

        by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Saturday July 11 2015, @03:43PM (#207900) Homepage

        The frontal lobe is the seat of good manners, so I wouldn't miss that part at all.

        • (Score: 1) by blackhawk on Saturday July 11 2015, @05:40PM

          by blackhawk (5275) on Saturday July 11 2015, @05:40PM (#207942)

          Then you won't mind if I stroll by and simply cut it out of you.