Brainet, The Next Supercomputer!

Can you fathom the plausibility in which there is a world that computers will no longer be running off of silicon chips and chipsets? What would be that replacement?
The answer is simple, with a dash of scariness, Brains!

Indeed this breakthrough technology has bounded light years into the future as two completely separate studies that have been recently published into the “Scientific Reports” that our technology may actually be edging towards that type of future. During a series of untold experiments, scientists have actually connected live animal brains in order to form a functional “Organic Computer” known as Brainet! This new form of computer technology is capable of performing the most basic computational tasks, and more so shocking is that with several brains connected simultaneously than with each single brain alone.
Dr. Natasha Kovacevic has said that this is brilliantly done both scientifically as well as technically. A brain and machine interfaced together. He goes on saying that it is extremely amazing at the ability to conduct such an experiment, however still frightening that we are able to utilize live animals mechanistically as our replacement for computer chips.
The intensive research team which is led by Dr. Miguel A.L. Nicolelis from Duke University, has been pushing the boundaries of brain to machine interfaces to the extreme point that machines are not even in the equation any more. Just a few short years ago, the team actually broke ground as they have completely designed and developed a system that allows monkeys to move a virtual arm using only their brain waves alone. The monkeys were also able to feel whatever the digital arm was touching.
Just a few years ago in 2013, Nicolelis and his colleagues was able to transferred information between two rat brains with some small assistance from the brain chip. The team had trained a special “Encoder” rat to be able to press only one of the two levers presented upon an LED light. The scientists were recording the cortical activity as they monkey progressed along.

Once this task was completed, the team used their recordings in order to stimulate the corresponding brain regions of another rat that had not been trained upon the same task. Much to their surprise, the decoder rat was able to pick the correct lever over 60% of the time. This in return provides a result that, while still imperfect, indeed suggest that it may actually be feasible to join two animals brains in order to create a new form of network.
When wiring up several multiple processors inside of a parallel actually speeds up digital computers, this specific team is wondering if forming a new “Brainet”. This concept may provide a biological computer technology a tremendous speed boost.
During the first study, the team had implanted arrays of microelectrodes in which records signals as well as stimulating the neurons directly into the brains of four test rats. They then proceeded onto physically connecting the four rats up and creating the first ever Brain-to-Brain network interface.
Giving the rats a short “Zap” that acts like the on-switch signal, the scientists were monitoring the rats brain waves. If the rat’s brains waves were able to oscillate in unison, they were rewarded with water. The purpose of this experiment it to test and verify that synchronizing brains together would be able to achieve a goal that no single brain has the power to perform on its own.
The trails took only 1.5 weeks and within that time frame, the rats were in fact able to learn to synchronize their brain waves at will.
During one bizarre experiment known as “Telephone”, the scientists were able to learn that they were able to transmit information sequentially through their new Brainet. Once the rats were connected together, they stimulated the first rat’s brain and recorded the results. After their results were recorded, the first rat delivered the message onto the second rat. The second rat was not only able to produce an extremely close brain activity pattern, but the third rat was able to reliability decode and then deliver the pattern back to the first rat. The reports came back as the correct “Message” in just over 35% of the trials. This provides twice over better results than what each rat could perform on their own.
In the world of networking, Nicolelis was able to develop an artificial network in which is able to classify, store, and even transfer data. The animals in testing sensory cortices was able to function just like we can see in silicon processors in todays computers.
While the development of Brainets are intellectually intriguing, there is a massive disturbing image about this research. Just because we are able to do something, should we always act upon it?
During this case study, my vote is no.

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