Scientists 'Read Thoughts' Using Brain Scans

Bruce_of_the_Cosmos writes "Researchers at University College London and University College Los Angeles say that the can 'read' thoughts using fMRI brain scans. While a subject's attention switched between two images, scientists could monitor activity in the visual cortex and accurately determine, among other things, which image the patient was looking at."

Comments

I bet the CIA want ones real bad...

[Fallen Kell]

I predict a hughe cash infushion in the near future for this research project from our great government in the name of anti-terrorism.

Philosophical questions

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder how far this can go to answer the question of the mind-body problem.

Mind Reading... Think again

[str8lazy]

This isn't mind reading, they seem to be far from it. This is just a crude process that still has yet to show actual results. Actual mind reading devices are probably 45-60 yrs away. There needs to be many major break throughs in understand human physiology and a better understanding of how the brain works. Unless someone shows up with a whole neural map of the brain and in detail specifics what each nerve ending and so on does, than this kinda technology has some years to go. But if someone were to come out with that within the next 5 yrs, cut that time frame in half.

Re:A few problems

[NoData]

The time course of fMRI is currently way too slow for use in neuroprosthetic

How about the problem of carrying around a liquid-helium cooled 3 tesla magnet and RF coil on your head? That kinda cramps the prosthetic angle.

As for reading thoughts -- the studies looked at primary auditory and primary visual cortex, the two cortical areas least likely to be involved in conscious thought.

I have no idea what this means. You never hear or see anything consciously?

Very misleading

[AutopsyReport]

A very misleading article summary and a very misleading article title to boot. All they are doing is identifying the brain's reaction to different stimuli. This has absolutely nothing to do with thoughts. Not to diminish the importance of this research, but how it relates to thought-reading is beyond me.

The researchers know what stimuli the participant is engaged with. It would be remarkable if they didn't know and could guess what general type of stimuli (fright, romance, etc.) the participant is engaged with based on the brain's varying reactions.

Re:Seriously, Seriously... What am I thinking?

[Oktober Sunset]

the thing is though, the polygraph can be cheated by deliberately throwing it off during the baseline tests, usually by inducing stress by causing yourself pain by biting your lips or digging your fingernails into yourself at random, you could do the samething with this brain scan by thinking of things that you know will alter your brain activity, like doing calculations or thinking about sex, or by the same method of inducing pain, people would find a way to cheat it. If they show you pictures your could deliberatly not look at them, you could just let your eyes unfocus and stare at nothing at all.

The reason polygraphs don't work is people screw with them, just add a whole load of other factors at random and you can mix up the readings so they can't find any correlation between a truth and lie reading.