What if our neurons could pick up, in real time, the sensations of a rat or the echoes of a bat? According to Rowan Hooper, a scientific journalist and editor-in-chief of New Scientist, advances in neurobiology make this scenario imaginable, even though evolutionary biology outlines its limits. From the complete mapping of a fly’s brain in 2016 to the 2013 experiment connecting two rats to exchange sensory information, milestones exist. Tomorrow, wireless electrodes and an AI translator could graft a rat’s vision or a bird’s flight experience onto our perceptions, raising a simple yet weighty question: what price for the animal?
A step towards fascinating technology
The idea may sound like science fiction, yet it is gaining ground. Researchers and scientific journalists, starting with the British Rowan Hooper, are exploring the possibility of connecting a human brain to that of an animal. Such an interconnection, through wireless electrodes and cutting-edge algorithms, could disrupt our senses and our way of perceiving the world. The trail combines neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and artificial intelligence, with uses that are difficult to fully grasp.
Advancements that change the game
This future does not start from scratch, it builds on very concrete milestones. In 2016, teams published a deep mapping of the connections in a fly’s brain, a technical feat that set a precedent. And in 2013, the experiment where two rats were directly connected showed that an individual could interpret the sensory signals of the other to accomplish a task. Due to progress in brain-to-brain interfaces and neural decoding, the question is no longer if it is possible, but how to make it reliable and safe.
An immersion in new senses
Hooper envisions targeted connections to experience new senses, such as capturing how a rat “sees” the ground level space. Who hasn’t dreamed of flying like a bird and feeling the air dynamics on their wings? However, a biological limit quickly emerges, our brain is not wired to interpret certain animal patterns, and vice versa. One option could be to use an AI mediator to translate these flows, or even simulate modalities like echolocation in a bat, which is closer to us evolutionarily than a bird with a cortex.
When science meets ethics
The excitement fades as we consider the consequences, starting with animal welfare. Can we subject a species to repetitive brain stimulations, with stress or pain, in the name of human curiosity? Safeguards exist, ethical committees and the principles of the 3Rs require it, but they must toughen up if these experiments become more realistic. In the end, the speed of development will depend as much on the technology as on public debate, as nobody wants to see these experiments veer into opacity or sensationalistic excess.
Source: New Scientist
