What are you thinking right now? Whatever it is then it would perhaps be advisable to stop because neuroscientists may be on the verge of penetrating the depths of the mind; to the point where reading thoughts becomes possible. Obviously the moral and ethical implications of this are potentially very wide-ranging.
Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fRMI) is a technique used to 'map' the brain. A subject lies in a magnet and a particular form of stimulation will be set up; then, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) images of the subject's brain are taken. Two scans are taken; firstly, a high resolution single scan is taken which is used later as a background for highlighting the brain areas which were activated by the stimulus. Next, a series of low resolution scans are taken over time. For some of these scans, the stimulus will be presented, and for some of the scans, the stimulus will be absent. The low resolution brain images in the two cases can be compared, to see which parts of the brain were activated by the stimulus.
However, recently things have been able to be taken a little further. They have been able to discern which of two images you saw and furthermore whether you are thinking of a face, animal or scene. Basic predictions, about which finger you will next move can also be made. Of course, the race is now on to push the boundaries way beyond identifying current thoughts into predicting future behavior and ascertaining the core of why we act in the way we do.
John-Dylan Haynes, a researcher at Germany's Bernstein Centre for Computational Neuroscience, is one those driving the research forward. The mission statement of his project is to investigate “ways to decode and predict a person’s thoughts based from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data”.
Article comments
1 - Mark Marks
mindreading technology This group is about the mind reading technology that is going on in schools and Laboratories around the world. This is for real mind reading research only. Not for fake post, but for real research only. This is real tech you may view the home pages of universities etc, cnn, etc if you don't believe the post.
This group is about Subvocal Speech, Brain FingerPinting, BrainGate Chip, FMRI research, and more.
2 - Donald H. Marks, MD PhD
Advances in use of functional MRI to determine issues of truth and deception during interrogation have transformed this technique into applied mind reading. Simple analysis of areas of brain activation alone though is not sufficient for optimum interpretation and extraction of all information from these brain scans. One company " Cognitive Engineering, LLC - is pushing the limit of fMRI, making it possible to identify recognition of individuals, specific objects, places and even emotional states. Application areas we can expect in the near future include criminal defense, national security and corporate background investigations. MRI is now being applied to neuroeonomic studies (buying decisions) and even to neuro-political analysis (thought analysis of voter decisions). As imaging power and data analysis methods improve, more specific and detailed information on thought processes including intents will become available. Hopefully, the scenario portrayed in the movie Minority Report will not become reality.
3 - Mikael Dewabrata
recently this kind of discussion made me interested. philip K Dick as a futurist fiction writer had already made assumptions about elements that would occur in future life. MRI is probably the new kind of name about it, the concept itself is beneath the human consciousness told over centuries. law itself is an instrument, a simple one, that social made to prevent everything based on human activity. MRI is the more complicated method to predict, and using psychology, neuroscience, sociology, bla bla.