Chinese scientists build a new optical brain-brain interface

, March 24 (Reporter Liu Yuanyuan) Elon Musk's display of the brain-computer interface system has triggered a brush screen. What if you don't just connect brain machines and directly transmit information between the brain and the brain? Science and Technology Daily reporter 24 from the Beijing Brain Science and Brain Research Center learned that the center Luo Minmin laboratory using fiber optic recording and photogenetics activation technology to build an optical brain-brain interface, in two mice to achieve high-speed motion information transmission, from the principle of verification of the brain-brain interface across the individual to accurately control the possibility of animal movement. The findings were published in the Journal of Chinese Science: Life Sciences.
" In recent years, research has shown that electrophysiological information can be extracted from the cerebral cortical layer of an animal, decoded and stimulated by electrostation or transcranial magnetic stimulation technology to stimulate the cerebral cortical layer of another animal, thus proposing the concept of brain-brain interface. The study's first author, Lu Lihui, said.
previously, the brain-brain interface information transmission rate was very low -- only 0.004-0.033 bits per second, which is the most important bottleneck restricting the development of brain-brain interface. The main technical obstacles are the traditional brain-brain interface needs long-term EEG multi-channel recording, technical difficulties, brain wave recording is difficult to decode accurately.
based on previous laboratory studies that found that the activity of undefined nucleation neurons in the brain can predict the speed of animal movement. The researchers used fiber-optic recording and photogenetics techniques, as well as neural loops that accurately predict and regulate the speed of animal movement. They used a fiber-optic recording system to extract motor information from undefined neurons in one mouse's brain, decode the active signals of neurons, and then transmit them to the brain-brain undefined neurons of another through photogenetic stimulation.
", a brain-to-brain interface based on optical recording and stimulation, enables highly synchronized motion in animals, with a messaging rate of 4.1 bits per second, two to three orders of magnitude higher than previous studies of its kind. Lu Lihui said.according to
, the advantage of this new brain-brain interface is that it can stabilize the recording of neuron activity of specific cell types with similar functions, high signal-to-noise ratio, relatively easy to operate, and avoid the technical challenges of multi-channel recording, reducing the difficulty of decoding neural information.