David Poeppel, Master of Synthetic Telepathy

University of Maryland neuroscientist David Poeppel, along with researchers at University of California, Irvine, and other schools, is part of a $4 million U.S. Army grant to achieve what the Army is calling synthetic telepathy. This sounds like something out of Hollywood, but, says Poeppel, electronic telepathy is absolutely possible so long as “communication” is understood to be electrical signals rather than words.

“Suppose you tap out two rhythms,” says Poeppel. “I train you to get really good at tapping out those particular two rhythms, so you can do it mentally. You have motor memory connected to those two rhythms. That can give a big signal (readable via MEG). If I can extract that, I have a signal I can work with and send it.” All mental thoughts create electrical signals.

The experimenters hope to train subjects to make those signals fire in patterns that can convey information, like Morse code. The code could conceivably be picked up by a sensor trained to focus on a particular electromagnetic frequency and then sent to a computer and resent to another sensor, allowing for something like helmet-to-helmet telepathic communication.

How else will neuroscience affect our lives? Prescription medications for mental health will be far more effective than those currently available, says Poeppel. We’ll treat most sight or hearing loss with brain prostheses like the cochlear implant. We’ll discover the real roots and effects of mental illness, and mental disorders will become as mundane as a common sports injury and will be treated as such. Our cognitive functioning will become far clearer and better understood.

According to Poeppel, the number of people going into the field (the Society of Neuroscience boasted some 38,000 members in October 2007) guarantees a “full frontal assault” on the mysteries of the brain in the years ahead. --Patrick Tucker