Travel via teleportation is currently an impossibility seen only in popular science fiction. However, a recent study finds should it ever become a reality, our brains are naturally set up to handle it.
According to NPR and UC Davis post doctoral scholar Lindsay Vass, the brain produces a signal whenever we begin navigating around any given area. A slow electrical oscillation, the signal originates in the Hippocampus, takes place throughout any time a person is attempting to navigate, and ends when the person does.
The study's intended use was to discover whether or not the signal played an active role in navigation, or was simply a byproduct of the brain's functioning.
To conduct the study, Vass and a team of researchers evaluated three subjects. In order to give them a testing environment free from outside stimuli, the subjects played a video game in which they navigated around a virtual world. The world had several teleportation points allowing the player to jump from various locations on the map, including a number of different stores within a small city setting.
(Video credit: University of Californa - Davis)
To gauge the activity of this oscillation, players were told to find a specific location after being sent into another place randomly.
Throughout even the moments of darkness when teleportation took place, researchers discovered the oscillation remained, constantly helping the brain navigate through the use of memory and imagination. Once the player landed in a new location, the brain would continue its navigatory process, employing new forms of stimulation alongside memory and imagination. Additionally, the brain's oscillation would change depending on whether the player had been teleported long or short distances.
This process is known as "mental navigation," best described as the activity a brain engages in when orienting itself to its surroundings.
Evidence found by the survey reveals the brain would be able to orient itself and navigate just fine after being teleported, in the eventual day when teleporting becomes a reality.
"Our brain would be OK with that," senior study author Arne Ekstrom said.
Hopefully teleportation becomes a reality before NASA opens up its propsed space station hotels.
Cassidee is a freelance writer and the co-host of a freelancing podcast and a geek culture podcast. You can chat with her about comics, video games, and Corgis on Twitter.
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