People who are called "vegetables", that is, those in a stable vegetative state, cannot lift a finger - not even their eyes. They were also thought to be completely unconscious until Adrian Owen, currently at Western University in London, Canada, examined the brains of vegetative people with an fMRI scanner and asked them to imagine playing tennis. His team was the first to demonstrate that some of these people are still 'there', their consciousness and mind intact.
Owen's teams and others are currently working on a portable mind reader to help these people communicate. MRI machines fill an entire room, so handheld devices use EEG electrodes on the surface of the skull that are worn like a cap. Owen's latest device uses vibrating pads on each hand, and a person in an apparently vegetative state is asked to pay attention to either the left or right pad by answering "no" or "yes" to the question.
The drive to develop mind reading technology has wider applications than this particular clinical setting, and in recent years methods have been developed to determine what a person hears, reads, or thinks to some extent. New Scientist suggests walking through this list.
Decoding the meaning
In 2012, João Correia of Maastricht University in the Netherlands and his colleagues found an interesting way to find out if there is activity in the brain associated with the meaning of a word. They used bilingual volunteers and recorded their brain activity on an fMRI scanner while they listened to the names of four animals - bull, horse, shark and duck - in English. It was possible to determine the characteristic patterns of the brain for each animal. The same patterns were reproduced when volunteers heard the names of the same animals in Dutch. Consequently, the brain reproduced the concepts of the meaning of the named words. One day we will learn how to transcribe entire sentences in real time, says Correia.
Eavesdropping on the inner voice
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To be listened to, you need to speak more quietly. The patterns of brain activity today can tell what your quiet inner voice is saying. Certain neurons in your brain are activated in response to various properties of sound, such as frequency. In 2014, a group led by Brian Pasley of the University of California, Berkeley developed an algorithm that can decode patterns of neural activity and determine which sounds the brain is responding to. They asked seven people who had brain implants to treat epilepsy to read aloud from the Gettysburg Address while recording their brain activity, and used an algorithm to determine which patterns of brain activity matched which words. The scientists then asked people to quietly read the text to themselves and were able, using an algorithm, to determine which words people read. It will be some time before all this technology fits into one device, but scientists hope that it will one day allow people who cannot do it physically to communicate.
Desires and free will
Tasty coffee? Just think about it and the robot will do it for you. This could be one of the consequences of developing a brain implant that can decode desires. In 2015, Richard Andersen of the California Institute of Technology and his team implanted a pair of tiny electrodes in two people in the posterior parietal cortex. They recorded the activity of hundreds of individual neurons, and the computer translated it. For Eric Sorto, he translated his desires into movements of a robotic limb. The second person was able to recognize desires as he tried to resolve the prisoner's dilemma.
Music teacher
Whether you are a musician or student, you have thought at least once that there should be an easier way to learn. Perhaps it will come true. In 2016, Beste Yuksel and Robert Jacob of Tufts University in Massachusetts developed BACh - Brain Automated Chorales - which helps people learn by measuring how strong their brain is active. Sensors are placed on a person's forehead to measure oxygen levels in the prefrontal cortex, and the next subject is offered for study only when the levels fall, indicating that you are ready to receive new information. The researchers tested their device on student pianists who learned faster and more accurately using BACh.
Seal by power of thought
In February this year, Jamie Henderson, a neurosurgeon at Stanford University Medical Center, and his colleagues reported that three paralyzed people have learned to type using only their thoughts and a brain implant. A silicone pouch lined with hundreds of electrical sensors was implanted into the primary motor cortex, the part of the brain that controls movement. Then people thought about moving different parts of their bodies, and the computer translated those thoughts into cursor movements on the screen. During the day, the participants learned how to correctly control the cursor and type up to eight words per minute.
Ilya Khel
