Telepathic mouse use mindreading to communicate in the US and Brazil

Scientists have developed a crude form of telepathy in animals by enabling a pair of rats to pass instructions using only their mind. Using microchips implanted in their brains to communicate, the rats were able to collaborate and solve simple puzzles, even though in one experiment they were thousands of miles apart. Researchers claim this is the first example of a 'brain-to-brain interface', raising the prospect that one day animals - and humans - could be able to read each other's minds. The team from Duke University in North Carolina said: 'As far as we can tell, these findings demonstrate for the first time that a direct channel for behavioural information exchange can be established between two animals' brains without the use of the animal's regular forms of communication.' Lead researcher, Miguel Nicolelis, a pioneer of research into brain-computer interfaces, said the study was the first step towards the linking of multiple minds to form an 'organic computer' or 'brain-net' that would allow sharing of information among groups of animals. 'We cannot even predict what kinds of emergent properties would appear when animals begin interacting as part of a brain-net,' he said. 'In theory, you could imagine that a combination of brains could provide solutions that individual brains cannot achieve by themselves.' He said it could even lead to one animal incorporating another's sense of 'self', although there are fears it could result in the development of mind control. In the experiments, published in the journal Scientific Reports, microscopic electrodes implanted into the rats' brains enabled one animal to pass on instructions to the other, even though it was in a separate cage. The first rat, known as the 'encoder', was taught to find water in its cage by responding to a light and pressing a particular lever. Its brain was connected to a second animal, known as the 'decoder', which was not given the light signals. Instead, the second animal relied solely on the brain instructions, but when stimulated still pressed the right lever to receive a reward 70 per cent of the time - far more often than it would have by chance, demonstrating they had been guided by the other rat's mind. Remarkably, the communication between the rats seemed to be two-way. The encoder rat did not receive a full reward if the decoder made a wrong choice, and as a result, became more decisive and generated clearer brain signals. 'We saw that when the decoder rat committed an error, the encoder basically changed both its brain function and behaviour to make it easier for its partner to get it right,' said Dr Nicolelis, who claimed this suggested a 'behavioral collaboration' between the pair of rats. A second test involved pairs of rats distinguishing between narrow and wide openings using their whiskers. Again, signals transmitted from one rat helped the other take the right action to obtain a reward. Evidence from this study suggested that the decoder rat began to develop a double identity, by picking up sensations from two sets of whiskers - its own and those of its partner. 'Our studies of the sensory cortex of the decoder rats in these experiments showed that the decoder's brain began to represent in its tactile cortex not only its own whiskers, but the encoder rat's whiskers, too,' said Dr Nicolelis. 'We detected cortical neurons that responded to both sets of whiskers.' This experiment was repeated with another pair of rats, one in the US city of Durham, North Carolina, the other in Natal, Brazil. By recording brain signals from one rat and transmitting them over the internet to the other, scientists were able to alter the second rodent's behaviour despite the vast distance. British expert Professor Christopher James, from the University of Warwick, who has conducted similar research, said: 'We are far from a scenario of well-networked rats around the world uniting to take us over, the stimulation is crude and specific. 'As for the ethics, I struggle to think of any applications that would not have ethical issues.'

• 2013-03-12T22:03:07+00:00
• Duration: 01:32

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