Is telepathy just around the corner?
Researchers from Duke University have allowed rats to communicate with each through brain signals.
Placed in separate cages, the rats were able to solve puzzles with the aid of microelectrodes 1/100th the width of a hair implanted into their brains. One rat was able to interpret the other’s actions and intentions even when they couldn’t see or hear each other.
The same experiment worked when the rats were thousands of miles apart with one in Brazil and another in North Carolina.
Scientists have so far been able to interpret a rat’s thoughts and intentions by downloading those brain waves into a computer, but this is the first time another rat has been able to understand the signals directly.
"Until recently we used to record this brain activity and send it to a computer," said Miguel Nicolelis of Duke's Medical Center in North Carolina. Nicolelis, who led the study, told the BBC's Science in Action program how the the system works. “And the [computer] tells us what the animal is going to do."
“We basically created a computational unit out of two brains,” Nicolelis said...