(MintPress) – The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has announced successful experiments conducted by Duke University that could lead to direct communication between two human brains, a breakthrough that could revolutionize future warfare.
Headquartered in Virginia, DARPA is an arm of the Department of Defense tasked with developing new technology for the U.S. military. Much of the work remains confidential, but the agency has been credited with major breakthroughs in robotics and missile technology since the Cold War.
Researchers announced their findings last month after testing brain to brain communication between two rats. Using cables connected to the brains of the animals, researchers found that simple messages or commands could be sent from the brain of one rat to another, the first ever “brain-to-brain interface.”
The results were published in Scientific Reports, a journal of the Nature Publishing Group.
The scientific team then successfully sent a message from one rat located in the United States to another in a research laboratory in Brazil, proving that the messages could be sent over long distances using the Internet.
“These experiments demonstrated the ability to establish a sophisticated, direct communication linkage between rat brains, and that the decoder brain is working as a pattern-recognition device,” said Miguel Nicolelis, a professor at Duke University School of Medicine. “So basically, we are creating an organic computer that solves a puzzle.”
Some have speculated that the technology could be applied in military settings, allowing soldiers to mentally pilot drones or drive vehicles using their mind.
Some within the medical and scientific fields contend that some DARPA projects, including brain-to-brain interface are unethical. Previous DARPA projects have been applied in legitimate medical applications, like improving prosthetic limbs and studying traumatic brain injury.
“If a warfighter is allowed no autonomous freedom to accept or decline an enhancement intervention, and the intervention in question is as invasive as remote brain control, then the ethical implications are immense,” writes Jonathan Moreno, a professor of medical ethics, and Michael Tennison, a professor of neurology.
Although far away from being used on humans, the results of the experiment could give the military control over soldiers’ brains, controlling them like drones from remote locations.
President Obama appears thoroughly committed to increasing funding to DARPA and other government agencies studying neurotechnology. He is expected to announce a decade-long, multibillion dollar effort this month that will examine the workings of the human brain and build a comprehensive map of its activity.