How many times have we wished we had a photogenic memory strong enough to cover your entire syllabus in one night, right? However, even though it may not be possible yet, what if we told you the opposite is true?
Researchers at Radboud University have revealed they are developing a “mind-reading” technology that can visualize a person’s brain waves.
In the quest to make this mind-reading technology possible, researchers revealed that an experiment conducted on two volunteers showed some positive results. The volunteers were each shown a different image and sat in a powerful brain-reading functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner.
An fMRI scanner detects brain activity based on blood flow. So, while the volunteers were focusing on a given image, the fMRI began to observe changing brain wave frequencies within the part of the brain responsible for vision.
The information obtained by the scanner was then transferred to a computer algorithm system that accurately reproduced the image that was displayed.
The best part about the whole study was that the images shown to the volunteers were generated by a computer using a “paint-by-numbers” technique where each tiny dot, whether light or dark, was assigned a unique computer code. The program code was given.
The images that were created were new and had never before been seen by the volunteers or fed into the fMRI scanner. Therefore, the accuracy he demonstrated in reading brain signals and correlating those signals into an image representation on a computer was a huge step forward.
This advancement in technology is huge and scientists are hopeful for even greater results. Cognitive neuroscientist, Thirza Dadu, believes that while the tests focused only on the image that was shown at the moment, the future with this technology could be to accurately picture what a person was thinking. Therefore, there could be a huge step forward in the world of mind reading and even medical settings.
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