Researcher Controls Another Person’s Brain Over the Internet

It's not just rats anymore. This might one day be the primary method of mind control.

This is a news blog from the New York Times. Here are some highlights.

August 27, 2013
Link

Researchers at the University of Washington have successfully connected two human brains over the Internet.In an experiment called “Direct Brain-to-Brain Communication in Humans,” the scientists involved in the research were able to send a brain signal through the Internet to control the way another researcher, seated in a separate area of the university campus, moved his hand.The two researchers involved in the project, Rajesh Rao and Andrea Stocco, connected their brains by slipping on a hat that included a “magnetic stimulation coil,” which can read and stimulate the brain. Mr. Rao then sent a signal to Mr. Stocco’s brain, forcing him to move his right index finger to hit the “fire” button in a computer game.

Link to University of Washington study.

Earlier this year, Dr. Miguel A. Nicolelis, a neuroscientist at Duke University, successfully connected the brains of two rats over the Internet, allowing them to communicate with their minds so when one rat pressed a lever, the other did the same. Scientists at Harvard Medical School have also created a brain-to-brain interface in a lab that enabled a human to move a rat’s tail just by thinking about it.The University of Washington’s researchers used electroencephalography, or EEG, to record brain activity noninvasively and then “stimulated” the brain using a technology called transcranial magnetic.

It doesn't seem too improbable to assume that intelligence agencies will be very interested in this. That is, of course, if they don't already have their own research program going on.

If this truly is possible, then it has always been possible. Can you think of any scenario where mind control would be useful? Tinfoil hats on people!