title: The Two-Brains Hypothesis: Towards a guide for brain-brain and brain-machine interfaces.
abstract: Great advances have been made in signaling information on brain activity in individuals, or passing between an individual and a computer or robot. These include recording of natural activity using implants under the scalp or by external means or the reverse feeding of such data into the brain. In one recent example, noninvasive transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) allowed feeding of digitalized information into the central nervous system (CNS). Thus, noninvasive electroencephalography (EEG) recordings of motor signals at the scalp, representing specific motor intention of hand moving in individual humans, were fed as repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) at a maximum intensity of 2.0[Formula: see text]T through a circular magnetic coil placed flush on each of the heads of subjects present at a different location. The TMS was said to induce an electric current influencing axons of the motor cortex causing the intended hand movement: the first example of the transfer of motor intention and its expression, between the brains of two remote humans. However, to date the mechanisms involved, not least that relating to the participation of magnetic induction, remain unclear. In general, in animal biology, magnetic fields are usually the poor relation of neuronal current: generally "unseen" and if apparent, disregarded or just given a nod. Niels Bohr searched for a biological parallel to complementary phenomena of physics. Pertinently, the two-brains hypothesis (TBH) proposed recently that advanced animals, especially man, have two brains i.e., the animal CNS evolved as two fundamentally different though interdependent, complementary organs: one electro-ionic (tangible, known and accessible), and the other, electromagnetic (intangible and difficult to access) - a stable, structured and functional 3D compendium of variously induced interacting electro-magnetic (EM) fields. Research on the CNS in health and disease progresses including that on brain-brain, brain-computer and brain-robot engineering. As they grow even closer, these disciplines involve their own unique complexities, including direction by the laws of inductive physics. So the novel TBH hypothesis has wide fundamental implications, including those related to TMS. These require rethinking and renewed research engaging the fully complementary equivalence of mutual magnetic and electric field induction in the CNS and, within this context, a new mathematics of the brain to decipher higher cognitive operations not possible with current brain-brain and brain-machine interfaces. Bohr may now rest.
authors.affiliation: * Galil Genetic Analysis, Katzrin 12900 Israel.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Goodman
authors.affiliation: † Department of Clinical Sciences, Faculty of Biosciences and Medical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 Johor Bahru, Malaysia.|‡ Laboratory of Biological Modeling, The Rockefeller University, 10065 New York, USA.
authors.forename: R R
authors.initials: RR
authors.lastname: Poznanski
authors.affiliation: † Department of Clinical Sciences, Faculty of Biosciences and Medical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 Johor Bahru, Malaysia.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Cacha
authors.affiliation: § Department of Molecular Genetics, Faculty of Life Sciences, Tel-Hai Academic College Galilee, 12110 Israel.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Bercovich
mesh_terms: D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology; D000818:Animals; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D062207:Brain-Computer Interfaces; D003243:Consciousness / Q000502:physiology; D004569:Electroencephalography / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000502:physiology; D008959:Models, Neurological; D009043:Motor Activity / Q000502:physiology; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology; D011789:Quantum Theory; D050781:Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation / Q000379:methods
keywords: Bohr biological complementarity; Faraday induction; Transcranial magnetic stimulation; brain–brain, –machine, –computer therapies and engineering; two-brains hypothesis