Watching the experiment, a stranger could hardly appreciate the fantastic event. Everything looked dull routine of the subject lying in the MRI scanner, one saw the handwritten letters - in, R, A, I, N and S (as is easily seen, together forming the English word "brains"). Without too much fuss scanner recorded the changes in the activity of the brain associated with the processing of visual stimuli, and transmit the data to a computer. Here the information is analyzed a new algorithm, but more began almost a miracle on the screen appeared jagged lines of letters: B, R, A and so on. Mind reading began. Can not say that this is the first example of such neurophysiological miracle, but the new algorithm really is high quality "telepathy." To do this, the resulting MRI image of the visual centers was broken by 1200 voxels dimensions 2x2x2 mm, depending on what the subject saw the letter, the pattern of activity of nerve cells in these regions changed. If people looked at the triangle, the excitation of neurons appeared in one set of visible voxels tomograph, if the letter O in another, and so on.
However, the patterns of this activity is extremely complex, diverse and varied. Their interpretation still represents an almost impossible task, and to deal with it, the Dutch scientists used a trick. They included in their program an idea of ​​how the activity of the visual centers, giving quite clear results. "This approach is similar to how our own brain combines experience and a new sensory information - adds one of the authors of Marcel van Gerven (Marcel van Gerven), - for example, you can recognize the straight and curved lines on this page as letters as already know how to read, and you know that and what the letter can match. "On reading the word BRAINS scientists to stay, of course, are not going to. In the near future they are going to test their algorithm using a much more powerful scanner that allows to monitor not 1200 voxels, and immediately 15,000 Perhaps it will link the activity of the visual centers, not only with the recognition of relatively simple letters, but with a much more challenging task - getting to know persons.
Photos © Dieter Schneider