Editorial November 18, 2013 Issue

Guarding thought

The Editors

Brain researchers have for the first time demonstrated one human being remotely triggering physical action in another human being—through thought.

Using brain signaling technology, a researcher imagined moving his finger—not actually moving it—and then, almost instantly, in a separate room, another researcher, wearing a cap that sent magnetic stimulation signals to his brain, involuntarily made the exact same finger-moving motion imagined by his colleague (see “Researcher remotely controls colleague’s body with brain,” USA Today, August 28, 2013).

While technology and the Internet were required ingredients of this transfer of brain activity, the implications of human-to-human brain control are nevertheless huge. However, researchers caution that their research is meant for constructive purposes. The technology cannot be used to control anyone’s actions against their will, and it can only be used to read brain signals, not a person’s thoughts.

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