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Scientists Use fMRI To (Sort of) Read Minds

Posted by kdawson on from the penny-for-your-thoughts-nevermind-we'll-just-take-them dept.

NigelTheFrog writes "Researchers in England have used fMRI to map the activity in volunteers' hippocampuses. From these scans, they could pinpoint exactly where they were in a virtual reality landscape. 'Specific parts of each participant's hippocampus were active after that person had navigated to particular places in the room. A few practice rounds provided fodder for creating algorithms for each participant that correlated different brain activity patterns with different virtual locations. The algorithms, the team found, could in turn "predict" new virtual locations, not those used during practice rounds, based on each person's pattern of brain activity.'"

8 of 57 comments (clear)

  1. First post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    I read kdawson's mind and knew he was about to post this article. Thanks England for getting me a first post!

  2. Volunteer? by BadAnalogyGuy · · Score: 3, Funny

    How can a hippopotamus give consent?

    1. Re:Volunteer? by Hecatonchires · · Score: 5, Funny

      The paw the ground once for yes, and eat you for no.

      --

      Yay me!

    2. Re:Volunteer? by hirose.it · · Score: 2, Funny

      That's easy.
      "By entering this trap you are regarded as agreeing to get MRI brain scans...

  3. Not England by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Obviously, if you have a campus full of hippos, you're in the US.

  4. Re:Now they want to understand what they read. by Fastball · · Score: 2, Funny

    "Dose she swallow?"

    Alas, some doses are bigger than others.

  5. Re:Tin foil hat by drawlight · · Score: 2, Funny

    What would the side effects be if you were wearing a tin foil hat inside a MRI machine? I hope it isn't anything like wearing a tin foil hat inside a microwave.

  6. Brain reading by colinrichardday · · Score: 3, Funny

    Shouldn't that be brain reading, rather than mind reading?