'Brain-to-brain interface holds hope for disabled'

HYDERABAD: Two researchers of the University of Washington have achieved what is being celebrated as a significant scientific breakthrough. They demonstrated what is called the first human non-invasive brain-to-brain interface.
One of the two researchers is Rajesh Rao hails from Hyderabad and is now professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Washington.Rao, who studied at Kendriya Vidyalaya, Kanchanbagh, moved to the US to pursue a bachelor's degree in computer science. His father P N A P Rao worked in DRDL and was avionics director in the LCA project. His mother Dr Kamali Rao is a retired professor of English language teaching.
Even as appreciation poured in for the two researchers, Andrea Stocco and Rajesh Rao, for their achievement, Rajesh Rao replied to an e-mail questionnaire from TOI sharing more information about their significant experiment.
How did you get the idea of the brain-to-brain interface possibility?
Perhaps the early inspiration came from hearing our Indian mythological stories of telepathy between rishis and watching Star Trek on Doordarshan, but the actual idea arose from the work in my lab on brain-computer interfacing, where the goal is to help people who are paralyzed and disabled by designing brain-controlled prosthetics.
Can you explain in detail how you went about your experiment?
What we demonstrated was a rudimentary form of information being extracted from one human brain and transmitted directly to another. The technology for extracting information from the brain is called EEG (Electroencephalography) and it records tiny electrical fluctuations measurable at the scalp caused by the activities of a large numbers of brain cells -- it is like listening to a crowd watching a cricket match while standing outside the stadium. You cannot hear individual conversations but you know when there's a 4 or 6. In our case, a computer was trained on the EEG signals generated by my brain when I was imagining moving my right hand. When the computer detected this imagery signal, it sent this signal via the internet to a TMS machine in my collaborator's lab. The TMS machine there delivered a magnetic pulse to the part of his brain controlling his wrist and fingers. This caused his wrist and fingers to move involuntarily, hitting the key that fires at the target in the game I was playing. His fingers therefore executed an action based on the imagery signal extracted from my brain.
What do the findings mean? To what advantage can they be used in science for the benefit of the common people?
In the distant future, perhaps two persons can communicate who do not have a common language. More immediately, that progress in this area will ultimately lead to better brain-controlled prosthetic devices for the paralyzed and better sensory prostheses for the blind and deaf.
How confident were you that your experiment would be successful?
We were optimistic about the experiment but given the many hardware and software components of the experiment spread across two labs, there was always the risk of failure.
What are you working on next? Through the brain to brain interface, what other motions can be controlled?
Right now, the kinds of movements that can be elicited are very primitive, amounting to a jerk or a twitch, and depends on where you place the TMS brain stimulator coil. We are currently exploring placing this coil over other brain areas. We are also investigating the possibility of two-way exchange of information instead of a one-way transmission, allowing a "conversation" between two brains.
What, in your opinion, could also be the pitfalls?
Any new technology comes with benefits and risks of abuse. The first thought that might come to mind (if you pardon the pun) is "mind control" or "mind reading" where someone controls your actions or reads your thoughts without your knowledge. Fortunately, this kind of ability is quite far from being possible with our current technologies and our current knowledge of neuroscience. However, one of our goals with this experiment was to start the conversation sooner rather than later on the various ethical and moral issues that will arise as brain-to-brain and brain-computer interface technologies become more sophisticated.
Researcher Rajesh Rao sees benefit for medical science from his brain-to-brain interface