Nano-Biotechnology

Mind Reading Machine Tells What You Are Thinking

Scientists create model that identifies complex random images by probing your brain

By Gabriel Gache, Science News Editor

6th of March 2008, 13:46 GMT

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It is well known that MRI scanners can be currently used to probe inside the human brain, and other living beings for that matter, in order to determine the pattern of brain activity and correlate what will actions the respective being is performing at a given moment. However, scientists want more than the identification of basic patterns associated with actions such as moving an arm or viewing a picture, thus they have initiated a study in which they hope to decode the brain activity so that one would be practically capable of seeing through the eyes of another person.

University of California researchers have developed a computational model

which uses MRI scan data to decode the information processes within the visual cortex of the brain. Co-author researcher Kay Kendrick writes: "Our research makes substantial advances towards being able to decode mental content from the brain activity as measured using fMRI". Further still, the data extracted so far suggests that, in the near future, it would even be possible for scientists to recreate the visual experiences from brain activity signals.

Standard fMRI scans can already provide enough information, so that just by looking at the patterns of brain activity, scientists can evaluate what kind of pictures a subject is viewing, whether it is a house or a human being, by comparing the particular brain activity which is associated with the two notions. The current study clearly shows that the probing of brain activity can reveal complex and arbitrary images, without the help of previous studies regarding specific brain patterns associated with objects.

During an experiment which involved the measurement of visual cortex activity of a number of people while they were viewing a few thousand photographs, the Berkeley team extracted enough data to create models that could decode and process the images to reveal what the person was actually viewing. In the second part of the experiment, the team used the model to accurately predict what a person was viewing while being presented with a random collection of 100 images.

Confident in their breakthrough, scientists can now say that one day the technology will allow them to gain access to dreams or memories, as the brain processes all these functions through a pattern relatively similar to that used by the visual cortex.

TAGS:

MRI | brain | visual cortex | mind reading | image

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