Anchor: Korean scientists have developed a brain-to-brain interface that allows a human user to control an animal's movement. Hooking up a wearable sensory helmet to an animal brain through an interface, the researchers succeeded in controlling a rat in a maze.
Kim Bum-soo has more. 

Report: A team of local scientists developed a brain-to-brain interface(BBI) that enables a human user to direct an animal's movement.

The team led by Hallym University Professor Shin Hyung-Cheul, POSTECH Professor Choi Seung-jin and Yonsei University's Chang Jin-woo on Thursday presented its findings to the media.

The interface receives inputs from a person’s steady-state visually evoked potentials(SSVEPs), electrical responses that occur in the brain when it is concentrated on a visual stimulus of a specific frequency.
 
The signal captured through a sensory helmet is then delivered to a rat’s nigrostriatal(NS) pathway through an electrical cord. 

The team said in its experiment, remotely-guided rats successfully navigated a T-maze via contralateral turning behavior induced by a brain-computer interface based on a human controller’s SSVEPs.

Brain surgeon Chang Jin-woo of the team said that the technology will be developed further to help those with brain or nerve injuries.

[Sound bite: Prof. Chang Jin-woo - Yonsei University College of Medicine (Korean)]
"Those with vertebrate injuries and others who cannot move limbs may be assisted through this method to move their arms and legs."

Researchers explained that they will now develop a wireless connection to the remove cords delivering the brain signals.
 
First author Bonkon Koo of the research noted that this is the first brain-to-brain interface to see the successful rat navigation without previous training.
  
The team’s latest study results were published in Scientific Reports, a sister journal of “Nature,” on May 24th.
Kim Bum-soo, KBS World Radio News.