People often say, "the brain works differently for different people." A team of scientists led by researchers from Carnegie Mellon University recently proved this literally. Researchers have developed a method for “fingerprinting” the human brain using magnetic resonance imaging, finding that the structural connections of the brain are so unique in each individual case that they can be used as an identifying factor for each individual.
According to the scientists' article published in the journal PLOS, they used the results of MRI scans of the brains of 699 volunteers. In each specific case, the diffusion MTP method was used. This is when a quantitative measurement of the diffusion of water molecules in biological tissues is carried out and a contrasting three-dimensional image of the brain is created on this basis.
After the procedure, the scientists took the results and calculated the distribution of water in individual compounds (called a local connectome). Researchers have found that each person has a unique local connectionome, which actually functions as a kind of fingerprint. It turned out that even twins' connectomes are only 12 percent identical to each other. To test their discovery, scientists ran 17,000 identification tests. The result was stunning, showing almost 100% accuracy.
Scientists have figured out something else. People's life experiences, such as unhealthy lifestyles and illness, have been found to affect the structure of the brain. In other words, scientists can use this information to develop methods to determine how the environment and the transferred experience shape people's brains. It is still difficult to answer whether such a method will be used in the future as identification of people. Now scientists are more interested in the medical potential of the knowledge gained.
Timothy Verstainen, one of the researchers at Carnegie Mellon University comments:
“This confirms what we in neuroscience have always only assumed: the connections in your brain are unique and unique to you. This means that somehow all of your life experiences are reflected in these connections in your brain. From this point on, we can begin our research and try to figure out how shared experiences such as poverty and hunger, as well as the same past pathological diseases, can affect the connections in your brain. This could lead to the discovery of potentially new biomarkers for displaying certain health problems.”
NIKOLAY KHIZHNYAK
