Remember when we would all laugh at those fictional dystopian views of the future where the government could read your mind, see what you see, and force you to eat the same cereal every morning while wearing funny hats? Well it might be the time to invest in personal electro-magnetic pulse devices because scientists at Japan’s ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories have developed a new technology that can reconstruct images from a person's brain and display them on a computer monitor, turning everyone into a flesh and blood security camera. Hit the jump for more details on this super awesome and equally creepy advancement in the world of science.
Ok that may be a bit reactionary, but by using a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine the researchers were able to map blood flow changes within a human brain's cerebral visual cortex when exposed to specific control images. Subjects were shown 400 random 10 x 10 pixel black-and-white images for a period of 12 seconds each, which allowed the scientists to map the changes associated with images, essentially calibrating the machine. Then, when the test subjects were shown a completely new set of images, such as the letters N-E-U-R-O-N, the machine was able to recognize and reconstruct the images in a recognizable, all be it low-res image.
So far, the system can only recognize simple, black and white images, but scientists are confident the technology will advance so much in the next 10 years that reading a person's mind with some degree of accuracy will be possible. This technology could be used in the fields art and design; imagine being able to see the images inside an artists head! It could also be used to treat mental conditions that exhibit hallucinations, allowing doctors to see exact what their patients think they're seeing. ATR chief researcher Yukiyasu Kamitani says, “This technology can also be applied to senses other than vision. In the future, it may also become possible to read feelings and complicated emotional states.”
It's a slippery slope from super awesome to totally scary. Is this a small piece of the flying-car-future we've all been hoping for? Or just another bit of tech that will be abused by the powers that be to keep us all good little citizens? Where's Walter Bishop when you need him?
