Scientists Turn Mind-Readers, More or Less; Working with epileptics, researchers at Stanford University managed to pinpoint certain brain activity as it was happening in real-life situations
October 27, 2013 Leave a comment
Can’t Get You Out of My Mind
DANIEL AKST
Oct. 25, 2013 9:25 p.m. ET
At last, scientists have found a way to read people’s minds. Well, sort of. True mind-reading remains a long way off, especially in a real-world setting. But now, in a situation approaching normal life, scientists have correlated activity in a small part of the brain so closely with certain types of thinking that these thoughts can be spotted just by looking at the record of brain activity. Stanford University researchers managed this by recruiting three patients who were being evaluated for surgical treatment of epilepsy, and whose skulls had therefore been opened so that electrodes could be attached to the exposed surface of their brains for up to a week. The patients, who weren’t in pain, could talk with visitors, eat, watch TV and do other things approximating everyday life—in contrast with typical experimental conditions, in which a volunteer’s brain activity might be measured inside a magnetic resonance imaging tube.In this case, patients were also monitored by video cameras. The electrodes acted like wiretaps, and the video provided a record of external goings-on that could be matched with brain activity.
The scientists focused on a group of cells in the intraparietal sulcus— an area on the surface of the brain’s parietal lobe, behind the frontal lobe, and previously linked to numerical cognition. They found that, whether the patients were solving math problems or just using terms such as “some more” or “bigger than the other one” in conversation, activity spiked in these cells.
Soon it was possible to tell, from the brain record alone, when patients were having quantitative thoughts, suggesting the scientists were engaged in a rudimentary form of mind-reading. Of course, the prospect of mind-reading is scary. But such abilities could also be extremely useful—for example, in facilitating communication by patients who are conscious but unable to move any part of their body.
—”Numerical Processing in the Human Parietal Cortex During Experimental and Natural Conditions,” Mohammad Dastjerdi, Muge Ozker, Brett L. Foster, Vinitha Rangarajan and Josef Parvizi, Nature Communications (Oct. 15)
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