It sounds pretty shocking but it’s absolutely true, scientists claim that they have made a breakthrough in brain research and have now discovered a way to read your mind, no joke.
Although their work has still to be reviewed, the researchers from the University of California used functional magnetic resonance imaging or fMRI as it is commonly known, to scan the brains of two individuals whilst they watched videos, reported the daily Telegraph.
What the researchers found was that they were able to link the movement and the colours in the video footage with the patterns of activity taking place in the visual cortex part of the brains of those watching the video.
All the researchers had to do then, was feed the information they received from the visual cortex into a bit of software and from that they could replicate what was being shown on the video onto a computer screen.
Ok so the footage wasn’t sharp and clear and more like a blurry “mind’s eye” version of the real footage but that’s not the point, the fact is they were able to produce something on a screen akin to what was going on in the brains of the two individuals that could be checked against the original video footage being watched. Wow!
Scientists have already managed to link patterns in the brain with still images that a person is looking at but this is the first time they have been able to “decode” the signals in the brain regarding moving images.
This is a mind blowing discovery and the implications of this kind of technology are enormous.
What it means for the future is that the technology could be used to record people’s dreams and thereby shed new light on dream research.
However, it could also be used to identify criminal suspects by scanning the minds of witnesses whilst they recall what they think they saw, or it could eventually even be used to question suspects.
Since the arrival of brain scanning technology, brain science has been taking massive leaps forward but this latest one is the mother of all biggies.
I’m not sure that the idea of a machine being able to read peoples minds and then displaying what it has “read” on a screen will go down well with everyone but whatever you think about it, it’s fascinating stuff.
