Study explores brain-computer manipulation

The study, published in Nature, found that when research subjects had their brains connected to a computer displaying two merged images, they could force the computer to display one of the images and discard the other. The signals transmitted from each subject’s brain to the computer were derived from just a handful of brain cells.

‘The subjects were able to use their thoughts to override the images they saw on the computer screen,’ said the study’s lead author, Itzhak Fried, a professor of neurosurgery at the University of California, Los Angeles. The study was funded in part by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), and the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), both part of NIH.

In the study, brain-computer interface (BCI) technology was used mostly as a tool to understand how the brain processes information, and to understand how thoughts and decisions are shaped by the collective activity of single brain cells.