• HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
Monday, October 6, 2025
BIOENGINEER.ORG
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
No Result
View All Result
Bioengineer.org
No Result
View All Result
Home NEWS

New Interface Allows Humans to Move a Rat’s Tail With Their Thoughts

Bioengineer by Bioengineer
October 29, 2013
in NEWS
Reading Time: 3 mins read
0
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare on RedditShare on Telegram
 
This announcement comes only weeks after another team of scientists created an electronic link between the brains of two rats. But unlike that study, in which brain implants were inserted into a rat’s motor cortex, the new brain-to-computer interface (BCI) utilizes transcranial focused ultrasound (FUS) and electroencephalography (EEG) technology, which simply requires the wearing of external devices.
 
To make it work, Seung-Schik Yoo of Harvard Medical School in Boston and colleagues anaesthetized a rat and hooked it up to a device that could channel focused ultrasound directly (and noninvasively) to its motor cortex. Human volunteers were equipped with an EEG cap to collect and transmit signals. Then, by using a computer as an interface between the two, a fairly straightforward mind-to-mind link was established.
 
 

When a thought-process was evoked in a human participant's brain — namely the intention to move the rat’s tail — the computer was able to detect it in the form of an EEG pattern (an EEG-based steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP)).
 
From there, after distinguishing it from other signals (like visual stimulation), the computer triggered the focused ultrasound to stimulate the motor cortex of the rat, resulting in the movement of its tail. And interestingly, all six human participants were successful at moving the rat’s tail and with little difficulty. The BCI achieved an accuracy rate of 94% and with a time delay of 1.6 seconds from the moment of thought initiation to the tail movement.
 
The researchers hope to see their new interface connected between two humans, particularly for therapeutic purposes (what’s called “neural coupling”). Ideally, it could help people relearn how to use previously paralyzed limbs.
 
Or, it could lead to more profound applications in which humans voluntarily couple themselves and move each other's body parts. Combine this with other brain-to-brain linkages, such as sensory/somatomotor communication, and it suddenly becomes a prospect that the researchers say could have a positive impact on human social behavior.
 
Now that said, and as New Scientist’s Sara Reardon points out, there are some serious limitations to this particular form of brain-to-brain interfacing:
 
But Ricardo Chavarriaga at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) in Lausanne and others say that while the experiment is an interesting application of the two technologies, linking them together does not reveal much about the ability to link two brains.
 
Because the rat was anaesthetized to isolate the effect of the intervention, he says it is not clear that the experiment realistically models what would happen if a conscious brain was stimulated this way.
 
More importantly, Chavarriaga says, the experiment will not be meaningful until the human's intention corresponds with the rat's action. For instance, a person might imagine moving their left hand to move the rat's left paw. Yoo's approach would not be of any use for that because it only tells us that a person's mental focus has changed, not what the thought or sensation behind the change is.
 
Check out the entire article at PLOS.
 

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by iO9 – GEORGE DVORSKY.

Tags: Interspecies telepathy
Share12Tweet8Share2ShareShareShare2

Related Posts

Genetic Score Predicts Therapy Discontinuation in Psoriasis

October 6, 2025

Arbeitsbelastung und Gesundheit von Pflegekräften in Pandemie

October 6, 2025

Psychiatry, Primary Care, and OB/GYN Subspecialties Experience Highest Physician Attrition Rates

October 6, 2025

New Research Finds Human Sound Focusability Originates Beyond Auditory Nerve and Brainstem

October 6, 2025
Please login to join discussion

POPULAR NEWS

  • New Study Reveals the Science Behind Exercise and Weight Loss

    New Study Reveals the Science Behind Exercise and Weight Loss

    95 shares
    Share 38 Tweet 24
  • New Study Indicates Children’s Risk of Long COVID Could Double Following a Second Infection – The Lancet Infectious Diseases

    93 shares
    Share 37 Tweet 23
  • Ohio State Study Reveals Protein Quality Control Breakdown as Key Factor in Cancer Immunotherapy Failure

    73 shares
    Share 29 Tweet 18
  • New Insights Suggest ALS May Be an Autoimmune Disease

    71 shares
    Share 28 Tweet 18

About

We bring you the latest biotechnology news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Follow us

Recent News

Genetic Score Predicts Therapy Discontinuation in Psoriasis

Arbeitsbelastung und Gesundheit von Pflegekräften in Pandemie

Psychiatry, Primary Care, and OB/GYN Subspecialties Experience Highest Physician Attrition Rates

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 63 other subscribers
  • Contact Us

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
    • Home Page 2
  • News
  • National
  • Business
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.