In the video, a key word is spoken to each patient, using the scanner, the device measures brain activity and “guesses” what the patient’s brain waves relay into “words”. Essentially the device reads brain signals and then echoes the information back at the moment of the audio stimulation.

The brain breaks down words into complex electrical patterns that can be decoded and translated back using the machine. The device analyzes the the activity upon reception of the audio information, it can then report back an approximation of the original sound. It’s believed that the brain processes thought much in the same way it processes sound; scientists believe this breakthrough may, in the future, lead to and implant that can interpret, essentially, the brain waves in those patients unable to speak, translating that data into audible speech.

Seeing as the device is based mainly on sound reaction interpretation, the device is said to be a long way off due to the fact that scientists would have to develop it in such a way that can analyze thoughts of patients, rather than reacting to sound.

According to a source, the device would require electrodes implanted into the physical brain of a subject because there are no sensors in existence that could detect the finite electrical signals of the brain from a non-invasive stand point. A researcher from the University of California at Berkley commented saying:

“This is huge for patients who have damage to their speech mechanisms because of a stroke or Lou Gehrig’s disease and can’t speak. If you could eventually reconstruct imagined conversations from brain activity, thousands of people could benefit.”

A study was done, analyzing patients suffering from epilepsy, who were to undergo surgery to point out the cause of their seizures. The process entailed having small electrodes placed on the brain through a hole in the skull. Now, while the electrodes were attached, the team mediated activity in the temporal lobe of the brain; the area which precesses speech. In that time, the patients listened to recordings of clear, concise speech and conversation.

The conversation was broken down into its baser sounds and with this, the team was able to build 2 computer models that matched signals in the brains of the individuals to actual sounds. After that, they tested the two models by playing a single word recording to the patients, which then gave them the ability to guess, from the brain activity, what the word they heard was.

The more concise of the two models was able to make an extreme approximation of the given word from the team. Researchers say the technology could be adapted to become more accurate by studying the brain waves of patients during longer conversations or by studying other parts of the brain that involve speech.

Some critics say, though, that this “mind-reading device” could be used to spy on people’s private thoughts, but Professor Brian Pasley dismissed it saying:

“This is just to understand how the brain converts sound into meaning, and that is a very complicated process. The clinical application would be down the road if we could find out more about those imaginary processes. This research is based on sounds a person actually hears, but to use this for a prosthetic device these principles would have to apply to someone who is imagining speech.”

One professor, Jan Schnupp said that this research is “remarkable”. He went on to say:

“Neuroscientists have long believed that the brain essentially works by translating aspects of the external world, such as spoken words, into patterns of electrical activity, but proving that this is true by showing that it is possible to translate these activity patterns back into the original sound -or at least a fair approximation of it- is nevertheless a great step forward, and it paves the way to rapid progress toward biomedical applications.”

UC Berkeley scientists have found a way to use brain activity to recreate moving images, i.e. movies. Basically, they were able to record signals in people’s brains, and then they used that data to reconstruct visual images.

The researchers used functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging to see how the subject’s brains processed visual stimuli, and applied that knowledge to the recreation of images using existing YouTube clips.

Here’s how they did it:

[The subjects] watched two separate sets of Hollywood movie trailers, while fMRI was used to measure blood flow through the visual cortex, the part of the brain that processes visual information. On the computer, the brain was divided into small, three-dimensional cubes known as volumetric pixels, or “voxels.”

“We built a model for each voxel that describes how shape and motion information in the movie is mapped into brain activity,” lead author of the study Shinji Nishimoto said.

The brain activity recorded while subjects viewed the first set of clips was fed into a computer program that learned, second by second, to associate visual patterns in the movie with the corresponding brain activity.

Brain activity evoked by the second set of clips was used to test the movie reconstruction algorithm. This was done by feeding 18 million seconds of random YouTube videos into the computer program so that it could predict the brain activity that each film clip would most likely evoke in each subject.

Finally, the 100 clips that the computer program decided were most similar to the clip that the subject had probably seen were merged to produce a blurry yet continuous reconstruction of the original movie.

Here’s the amazing video showing what those recreations looked like as compared with the original film clip –

As of now, the science can only reconstruct images from movie clips that people have already viewed. It can’t simply pull images right out of the brain and create a video of what someone is thinking.

But imagine the possibilities – dream mapping, reconstructing memories, and helping people with neurodegenerative diseases or people in a coma who can’t communicate verbally. The prospect of being able to record and then see a visual manifestation of your mind’s eye is terrifyingly awesome.

The researchers say that they are decades for the scientific breakthroughs to do this, however. It will be quite awhile before you’ll be able to read someone’s thoughts by monitoring their visual cortex.

But damn, isn’t this fascinating?

Oxford University neuroscientist Susan Greenfield tells the world in the Daily Mail that more parents are finding their kids don’t communicate well and have difficulty concentrating away from their screens. The flattering assessment of social media continues with information like

Sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Bebo are said to shorten attention spans, encourage instant gratification and make young people more self-centred.

I think this may be happening to folks of all ages. The difference is that the impact on a child’s brain is more profound because it is still developing whereas an adult brain is already developed. Adult behavior that changes is just that; a behavior that can change. The fear is that developing brains can actually be altered because of this MTV generation on steroids approach to media. Lady Greenfield continues by saying:

‘It is hard to see how living this way on a daily basis will not result in brains, or rather minds, different from those of previous generations,’ she said.

My fear is that these technologies are infantilising the brain into the state of small children who are attracted by buzzing noises and bright lights, who have a small attention span and who live for the moment.

‘I often wonder whether real conversation in real time may eventually give way to these sanitised and easier screen dialogues, in much the same way as killing, skinning and butchering an animal to eat has been replaced by the convenience of packages of meat on the supermarket shelf,’ she said.

So there is little doubt that the manner in which we interact is being changed by the Internet. Most of the coverage has been about the evolution of our ability to communicate with more and more people. One could argue that our communication is becoming an inch deep and a mile wide but that makes sense in a world that too often values quantity over quality.

So what is it Pilgrims? Are we becoming a society that is mistaking typed interactions with our virtual friends for what once defined a real relationship like face to face conversation, a handshake, a phone call and even spending extended time in the direct presence of another person? Are your online relationships as real as traditional ones? Let’s talk about it around the warm glow of the comment fire. Pass the virtual marshmallows!

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Researchers from Japan’s ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories have developed new brain analysis technology that can reconstruct the images inside a person’s mind and display them on a computer monitor, it was announced on December 11. According to the researchers, further development of the technology may soon make it possible to view other people’s dreams while they sleep.

Then, when the test subjects were shown a completely new set of images, such as the letters N-E-U-R-O-N, the system was able to reconstruct and display what the test subjects were viewing based solely on their brain activity.

(Utopic and dystopic scenarios: leasing parts of your brain space to a big corporation for a side income; building a problem solving computer based on low level brain growing farm; big brother supervising thoughts to crack down on dissidents; drawing tools; advanced lie detectors; brain exporting and importing of movies, smells, feelings…)

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