You Can Control Someone Else's Arm With Your Brain

Here’s proof that we are all officially living in a science fiction novel: A recent TED talk shows neuroscientist Greg Gage using one person’s brain to control somebody else’s arm. Is that amazing or completely terrifying? I can’t tell. What I really want to know is this: How long will it be before we are all being controlled like puppets by unspecified evil overlords? Because that is the logical next step, right?

Gage is the co-founder of Backyard Brains, a company that creates inexpensive DIY neuroscience equipment so that young people can get a peek at how the brain works. In his TED talk, Gage explains,

The brain is an amazing and complex organ, and while many people are fascinated by the brain, they can't really tell you that much about the properties about how the brain works because we don't teach neuroscience in schools.

Because equipment is so expensive, many people never get exposed to the neuroscience. Gage argues that this lack of exposure is a real problem, especially given the fact that 20 percent of people all over the world suffer from neurological disorders. He believes that early education is the key to getting people interested in the brain and how it works, saying,

It seems that what we should be doing is sort of reaching back earlier in the education process and sort of teaching students about neuroscience, so that in the future they may be thinking about possibly becoming a brain scientist.

In the video, Gage pulls two volunteers from the audience to do a demonstration of his DIY neuroscience equipment. Gage attaches electrodes to one person’s forearm and to one person’s ulna nerve, and connects those to a DIY “Human-Human Interface.” Once everything is set up properly (you can see how it works in more detail here), the first volunteer is able to make the second volunteer’s hand contract, simply by making a fist with her own hand.

Pretty crazy, right? I have a feeling that before we know it, we’ll be in this territory:

Watch the whole video. You can find out how to get your own neuroscience equipment at the Backyard Brains website.

Images: YouTube, Giphy