For the first time in the world, Japanese scientists have seen images that appear in the human brain
The experiments that were carried out a couple of years ago at the Max Planck Institute for Cognitive Problems and Neurophysiology in conjunction with the University colleges of London and Oxford seemed sensational. In fact, then it was possible to discern the thought that appeared in the subject's head.
“We were able to read what it was impossible to say from the outside that it was there,” their leader John-Dylan HINES admires his research. - As if you are rummaging a flashlight on the wall and suddenly you find an inscription.
“I’m absolutely confident that the technology we have created will continue to evolve, and our ability to read people's intentions, moods, hindsight, hopes and emotions will increase,” said Professor Colin BLAKMORE, neurophysiologist and director of the Medical Research Council. - Sooner or later, you will have to think about the ethics of such interference in the inner world of a person.
IF LOOKING AT THOUGHT FROM THE PARTY
The birth of thought was monitored using functional magnetic resonance imaging, an apparatus that records brain activity in real time. The researchers showed the volunteers two numbers. They offered to either add them or subtract one from the other. And they scanned the brain. So, scientists determined what people decided to do, even before they did it - they just thought: "Now I will lay down," - for example. In other words, they literally read the intentions ripened in the brain, observing where they actually mature.
Taking pictures of hallucinations (mainly among alcoholics suffering from delirium tremens), Gennady Krokhalev used a diving mask, inside which was a camera lens.
The Japanese have recently conducted similar experiments. But they stepped much further. We saw a whole word in the brain. That is, the visual image.
First, the subjects were shown simple pictures - crosses, zeroes, squares, dots. We watched how the brain responded to them, introduced these "bricks" into a computer. And then they asked people to think of one specific word NEURON. And in the end they read it right in the brain. True, not without the help of a special program that translated pictures of neural activity in the visual cortex into letters.
SO THAT'S WHAT YOU ARE HAPPENING AT NIGHT
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Both English and Japanese studies hold fantastic promise. Much cooler than those predicted by Colin Blakemore.
Assuming, of course, the promises of Yukiyasu Kamitani, the head of the Japanese team at the Computational Neurology Laboratory of the Institute for Advanced Telecommunications Research, are to be believed. As he assures, in a few years, even the recognition in the human brain of images that he did not see in reality - dreams or fantasies - may become a reality. Physicians will be able to penetrate into the secret world of hallucinations of mentally ill people. And see what they see. And designers will simply come up with their creations, which will immediately appear on the screen.
In the distant future, ordinary people will also be lucky. They will start recording their dreams on video, so as not to forget in the morning, and watch secretly, from sin. It happens, after all, sometimes you dream about something that you want to repeat. But don't advertise.
BTW
Hallucinations have already been photographed
There is a hypothesis that the brain not only creates images, but also transmits them to the retina under certain conditions. Like a beam of a movie projector on the screen. Such reversed vision makes some people believe that they are seeing, for example, not hallucinations, but something happening in reality. Moreover, there are suspicions that the "ray" on the "screen" of the eye does not stop. And it also comes out.
Back in the 70s of the last century, a young psychiatrist from Perm, Gennady Krokhalev, undertook to test this hypothesis. Assuming: since the eyes are emitting something, then it can be photographed. And he began to catch hallucinations on film. And it seems to be very successful. In about 20 years, he filmed visions of more than 200 mental patients. Published a lot of works. He even submitted two applications for the opening to the Committee for Inventions and Discoveries, which existed under Soviet rule. They were first accepted and then rejected "for lack of convincing evidence of reliability."
In the early 90s, the scientist sent the accumulated materials to Moscow. Where did they disappear. In 1998, Krokhalev committed suicide. Although relatives still believe that he was killed. After the scientist started talking that he had made a new discovery worthy of the Nobel Prize.
Those pictures of hallucinations that have survived do not look certain. But the very fact that at least something appeared on the film is already worthy of attention. Suddenly the eyes really radiate?
It is not known whether anyone is continuing Krokhalev's work now. The Japanese don't count. They go the other way.