Scientists Showcase Brain-to-Brain Communication with 3-Player 'Tetris'

In the future, we might be able to use brain implants like Elon Musk's proposed Neuralink to directly connect with other electronic devices and human beings; transmitting thoughts through a kind of high-tech telepathy. That's still a long ways away, but researchers from the University of Washington have passed a milestone on that journey: Creating a BrainNet "social network" of minds that allows for three people to send thoughts to one another's heads. The goal? Playing a game of Tetris, obviously!

"Tetris "Professor Rajesh Rao, one of the researchers on the world," said Professor Rajesh Rao. project, told Digital Trends. "Other games with a similar division of labor could also be used. A game such as Tetris provides a familiar and interesting setting for participants in brain-to-brain collaboration experiments. "

As Rao notes, for this particular demonstration, the idea was to get in touch with others Tetris. Two of the participants were able to see the screen Tetris blocks, which may or may not be needed in the back row. The other participant was the only person able to control the game but was unable to see what was happening on-screen. By using brain signals taken from the first two participants via an electroencephalogram (EEG), they were able to trigger LED lights, telling the player what move to make.

Next to the idea of ​​sending complexities to other people, this is a relatively basic research – it lays exciting groundwork for future studies.

"Current brain-to-brain interfaces are extremely limited in the amount of information transmitted between brains, preventing practical applications," Rao acknowledged. "However, with sufficient advances in brain recording and stimulation technologies, one of the most important scientific and societal problems within the ethically responsible framework."

Linxing Jiang, another researcher on the project, told us that: "We see brain-to-brain interfaces opening up futuristic ways for communication. Such interfaces could be paralyzed and unable to communicate, [since] decoding and encoding information from the brain directly.

A paper describing the research, titled "BrainNet: A Multi-Person Brain-to-Brain Interface for Direct Collaboration Between Brains," is available to read online.