Figure 1
From: A Brain-to-Brain Interface for Real-Time Sharing of Sensorimotor Information
Experimental apparatus scheme of a BTBI for transferring cortical motor signals.
Arrows represent the flow of information from the encoder to the decoder rat. In the motor task, the encoder rat has to identify a visual stimulus, signaled by an LED (red circle) and then press one of two levers to receive a small water reward. Meanwhile, M1 neural activity is recorded from the encoder rat and transmitted to the decoder animal, by comparing the pattern of the encoder's M1 to a template trial (previously built with the firing rate average of a trial sample). The difference between the number of spikes in a given trial and the template trial is used to calculate a Zscore. The Zscore is then converted, through a sigmoid function centered on the mean of the template trial, into an ICMS pattern. Thus, the microstimulation patterns varied in real time, according to the number of spikes recorded from the encoder rat's M1, on a trial by trial basis. Once microstimulation is delivered to the M1 cortex of the decoder rat, this animal has to select the same lever pressed by the encoder. Notice that the correct lever to press is cued only by the pattern of the decoder's M1 microstimulation. If the decoder rat pressed the correct lever, both rats were rewarded. Thus, when the information transfer between the brains of the two rats was successful, the encoder rat received an additional reward that served as positive reinforcement.
