Researcher Controls Another Person's Brain Over the Internet

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/27/researcher-controls-another-persons-brain-over-the-internet/?smid=tw-share&_r=1

by cleverjake • 13 years ago

50 18 13 years ago

bits.blogs.nytimes.com

sz4kerto• 13 years ago

It's quite an old story, and it's not that interesting I believe. All the components have been available for a while (external stimulation of the nervous system, recognizing EEG patterns, etc.). This experiment is mostly designed to make these things interesting to the general public, not because it's scientifically important or because it represents a big step forward towards controlling or understanding the nervous system/the brain.

r0h1n• 13 years ago

A person interfaces to another person over the Internet, and gets him to do something with his body involuntarily, and you think it's not "that interesting"?

All I can say is you must be living in a truly advanced world :)

femto• 13 years ago

These days, I think it is valid to take "over the Internet" out of the equation when deciding if something is impressive. For most applications, the Internet is a black box for transferring bits.

For "over the Internet" to be interesting, it needs to be pushing then boundaries of the Internet in some way.

pygy_4• 13 years ago

It could have been done twenty years ago, and it will not progress beyond what is shown here: causing a given muscle to twitch.

Transcranial magnetic stimulation is inherently imprecise and brutish. It causes all the neurons in the target brain area (3-4 cm^3) to discharge at once. Depending on the intensity of the stimulation, you can recruit more or less neurons, but it is not selective.

For most of the brain, it just disrupts the activity for less than a second, causing a "virtual lesion". This is useful for brain mapping research, but that's it.

When you zap the motor cortex, it also sends action potentials down the spine, which in turn stimulate the motor neurons then the muscles.

The hardware is bulky and unpractical [0]. You could maybe use two coils per brain hemisphere, and then, you must stimulate areas distant from one another.

For the foreseeable future the only mind control techniques are propaganda and manipulative behavior, with some drugs sprinkled in for good measure. No need to worry about this.

[0] https://www.google.com/search?q=transcranial+magnetic+stimul...

tobylane• 13 years ago

Is it interesting why appealing to the public was needed? For financing, or discussion?

Argorak• 13 years ago

Many proof of concepts are not very interesting. They are mostly a collection of existing techniques to prove a point, often to the general public: that we are capable of doing this with current technology.

csense• 13 years ago

Can this technology write to the thinking parts of the brain?

If the answer is "yes," then this can augment human thinking capabilities -- the rest is just improving bitrates of the human <-> computer channel and writing better software. Both of which are challenging and rewarding research areas, to be sure. But they sound a lot more like straightforward engineering with predictable improvements from research investment, rather than requiring basic research / fundamental discoveries.

pygy_4• 13 years ago

No, see my other comment.

Transcranial magnetic stimulation is a very blunt tool, and, in this case, the "mind reading" is really a binary switch that is triggered by thinking of something that produces a broad, easily detectable EEG pattern.

At best, repetitive TMS (rTMS) can bee used to temporarily make a brain area more or less active.

azinman2• 13 years ago

Gotta prove the concept and start somewhere....

Sam121• 13 years ago

First of all feel happy to read that we can control another person's brain over the internet, second best thing is the one of the researcher is an Indian people. Here i am not target any other but sharing my happiness.These type of extraordinary people give my country and other's a new way of thinking.New technologies are coming day by day. yesterday i read on HN about Elon Musk and Water car. People are going to more innovative and we can also try. Some time one fear always run in my mind and that is every good have bad part SO we have to take care of all these innovation other wise people can take a wrong use of it. Result will be very bad and only poor will suffer.

codecrusade• 13 years ago

Is this even possible?- This looks like a big Farce

tuananh• 13 years ago

I've seen brain surgery in movies, surgeon pokes into some part of brain causing reaction.

If the above is true, I believe this technology would be totally do-able. I even hope we can use it to boost our brain, that would be totally awesome.

If this day ever come true, brain security researcher would totally become the hottest job ever :D

tlarkworthy• 13 years ago

actually they do this regularly in brain surgery. For treatment of parkinsons they place a device that stimulates the damaged part. The device can be turned on and off and the amplitude and frequency of the stimulation can be altered.

A misplacement device or wrong frequency means loss of high level cognitive function (e.g. the patient can't talk, or move part of their body). Hence this type of operation is done with the patient awake, so the surgeon can fiddle with placement and frequency knobs and ask the patient questions in real time. I have seen videos of a person losing the ability to talk, then the surgeon changing something and they can speak again. The surgeon dialled down the device and the patient started shaking from parkinsons, then turn it up and fix the shaking.

kghose• 13 years ago

We've been doing that for millenia. It's called writing and reading.

pmarca2• 13 years ago

Right. That's exactly the same.

Researcher Controls Another Person's Brain Over the Internet

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