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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."
Homer: "I know you can read *my* thoughts, scientists! Meow meow meow meow. Meow meow meow meow. Meow meow meow meow. Meow meow meow meow."
Instructions here
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
The time course of fMRI is currently way too slow for use in neuroprosthetics. 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. The mind reading, neuroprosthetic spin is just that, spin. The really importart finding in these studies is the correlation of fMRI signals with electrical activity in the brain. fMRI measures increases in blood flow which has been suggested to be caused by increases in electrical activity in the brain - these studies provide evidence to suport this hypothesis. Scientist that study the electical signals in the brain directly (like me) have routinely critized fMRI studies because until now in was unclear how the results related to signal processing in the brain. There is still one major short coming of fMRI. Imagine that 50% of the neurons in an area of the brain increase their electrical activity while 50% equaly decrease their activity. This would result in a large change in signal processing but no change in blood flow and therefore would not show up in a fMRI scan. That said, fMRI is a powerful tool for understanding neural function, particularly in human who for some reason object to letting you stick electrodes into their brains. These new studies make in an even more useful tool.