Scientists transmit images directly from the human brain

admin — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 05:49:51 +0000

A team of Japanese scientists at the ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories have been able to transmit images directly from a human brain while the subject viewed individual letters on a computer screen. The images viewed by the subject were simple block letters (ie. N-E-U-R-O-N) displayed in black and white and reconstructed by a computer crunching data from an fMRI machine that observed the subject’s brain activity while viewing the letters. The results of this first test are somewhat grainy, but the results are amazing nevertheless. The hope in the not-to-distant future is that this technology will reconstruct images in color and eventually scan one’s dreams as they sleep.

While such technology certainly blows the mind, one can only wonder where and how it could be used. The most obvious application would be in the study and treatment of psychological disorders and diseases, but I am certain there would be military and national security interest in such technology as well. And it goes without saying that the porn industry could make a hefty buck with such a colorful gadget at their disposal … ! Who knows, maybe one day this gadget will transmit your dreams onto the family holodeck to provide endless hours of family fun and entertainment.

Perhaps this may end up being a hoax, but if it is true, it’s certainly an amazing achievement. In fact, I am surprised it has not been reported on in more mainstream news publications. So far only one major publication, the Telegraph, has reported on it, and so far, only a smattering of articles have shown up in Google News search results. Leave it to the blogosphere and sites such as Boing Boing to report about news stories such as this.

Mental Distortion » Data

Scientists transmit images directly from the human brain