As best I can tell, this article in Neuron reports that an MRI can be used to determine what the subject is currently seeing, based on several hundred past MRIs done when the subject saw different random images. Pink TTentacle reports further:
The scientists were able to reconstruct various images viewed by a person by analyzing changes in their cerebral blood flow. Using a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine, the researchers first mapped the blood flow changes that occurred in the cerebral visual cortex as subjects viewed various images held in front of their eyes. Subjects were shown 400 random 10 x 10 pixel black-and-white images for a period of 12 seconds each. While the fMRI machine monitored the changes in brain activity, a computer crunched the data and learned to associate the various changes in brain activity with the different image designs.
Then, when the test subjects were shown a completely new set of images, such as the letters N-E-U-R-O-N, the system was able to reconstruct and display what the test subjects were viewing based solely on their brain activity.
Possible applications:
According to the researchers, further development of the technology may soon make it possible to view other people’s dreams while they sleep....
The researchers suggest a future version of this technology could be applied in the fields of art and design -- particularly if it becomes possible to quickly and accurately access images existing inside an artist’s head. The technology might also lead to new treatments for conditions such as psychiatric disorders involving hallucinations, by providing doctors a direct window into the mind of the patient....
Cool and scary. Thanks to my friend Haym Hirsh for the pointer, and to David Byrne for the mental soundtrack.
Can't you just look where they're looking?
The first applications of this technology are likely to be in research and in enabling people with neuromuscular disorders (ALS, spinal trauma, etc.) to communicate with bionics.
This is cool, and as the article notes has the real potential to help people with mental problems. And instantly transforming a mental image into a real one has been the Holy Grail of visual arts since our ancestors were scribbling on the cave walls at Lascaux.
Don't be so certain about how far off it is:
Moore's Law
At the speed that increases (or is that "decreases"?) in miniaturization are going, I'd say it's a decade off at most, just in time for Chelsea Clinton's inauguration.
You must be a young-un. I can remember when the first company I worked for, a huge one named Northwestern Mutual Life, had an entire floor devoted to a mainframe computer that does about what your average off-brand laptop does now, only less reliably, and you needed a PhD in Computer Science just to know where to plug it in and how to turn it on.
Used to be, your "portable" phone came with wheels and a pull handle, and all you could do is make phone calls. Wrist watch TVs have been around for decades already.
And once the military (of any country) learns that you can see into someone's thoughts without having to duck their heads under water at all, you can bet there will be a top secret well-funded program specifically designed to shrink the size and increase the capabilities of such a device.
M -- O -- R -- O -- N
"ceremonial engineering" should be pretty cool. I see it as using a lot of those zappy orbs.
What geokstr said. Technology improves very quickly once initial breakthroughs like this one are made.
And many of them were also avid technophiles. Distrust the government, not scientific progress just because it might be used by the government someday.
@geokstr, MCM: Problems like this aren't just a matter of computing power or circuit miniaturization (which are the core of the examples geokstr cited). This kind of technology relies on machine learning algorithms; and algorithm development doesn't follow anything like Moore's law. Having worked in the field myself, I'm always quite skeptical of anything with an "Artificial Intelligence" flavor to it. Impressive sounding claims like this usually turn out to be much more limited when you get into the nuts and bolts.
IMHO, brain reading is still a long, long way off.
If you're unconvinced, think about NetFlix. It's supposed to have this wonderful algorithm that predicts what movies you'll like based on what movies other people like, right? But if you use NetFlix, you know that all it does is recommend films in the same genre, or with the same actor. Same with Amazon.com's prediction algs. The same kind of pattern learning algs are what's used in these 'brain readers', so don't buy your tin-foil hat just yet...
Now this I expect to see in my lifetime... at least for artificial limbs, if not Russian superjets.
It has been possible since the late 90s to assess whether people were experiencing an image falling with a very limited set of categories based on neuroimaging data. Brute force processing can extend the method. "Changes in brain activity" is imprecise, and what fMRIs actually measure is open to question. A given image of a kind of activity in a given region can represent a complex range of causes and interactions. Based on how this was reported, it's not clear what was really said, what researchers thought they had accomplished, and what's really new.
The MRI can be more easily used to tell if a person previously saw an image. In fact, other neuro sensors can do this (perhaps not as well).
This becomes a potentially accurate lie detector for certain assertions, and detecting other familiar patterns could be used to detect those familiar with "incorrect" ideas.
Or, more prosaic, perhaps to tell who has seen a lot of child porn.
It's published in a peer-reviewed neuroscience journal... not sure what you're looking for here...
Meanwhile work on nonmaterial methods of mind reading have suffered from association with charlatans and even (thru trivializ'n) from ass'n with entertainers. George P. Hansen has noted that the entire field of "paranormal" research is underfunded and given little respect.
I'm also patenting the art rendered during wet dreams because while art doesn't pay, porn does!
That technology used patterns of electroencephalograhic signals. It was quite crude. Work with biofeedback in the late '60s/early '70s demonstrated that people could learn to control measurable aspects of brain waves.
Moore's law is not applicable to the performance of MRI machines, which are large and bulky because of the nature of the emitters and the detectors, not microchips.
Even Moore's law has produced only a rapid improvement in processing power; functionality (what we're discussing here) has been much more gradual in its progress. The chip running it is much faster, but my word processing program still takes the same time to load it did in the 90's, and is not notably more useful.
Moore's law is not representative of the normal pattern of technological development in general. MRI machines are not likely to become much smaller; even if they did, that would not change the requirement that the subject remain perfectly still in a predetermined location between the emitter and the detector. Getting around that is going to be very tricky.
Some technologies, like computer chips, improve rapidly, and some, like batteries, or handguns, are difficult to improve substantially. Eventually they will be replaced, but it isn't likely to be soon.
For example, computer scientists in the 1950's had great expectations for Artificial Intelligence. They were no more accurate than the contemporaneous predictions of personal commuting by flying car.
Moore's law doesn't apply to everything.
Don't forget an important part of this article - each person has a unique, and completely different, activation pattern when viewing a particular image. The only way to identify a viewed image from an fMRI (with the current technology) is to already have an averaged fMRI made from several prior exposures to the exact same image. Similar images, or images of the same object from different angles, don't help.
The things you see are mapped onto your visual cortex, in a way that preserves the spatial patterns: this has been known for years, though previously you had to do things like sacrifice and cell-label an animal in mid-viewing to observe the effect.
The visual cortex activates in ways that preserve the shape of the word "neuron" in a recognizable way. But the effect doesn't extend beyond vision: these tools can't see the concept of "neuron" anywhere in the brain.
Methods to accomplish that are either categorically impossible, or so far off that neuroscientists can't imagine how it might be possible.
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