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Japanese Scientists Claim To Reconstruct Images From Brain Data
Posted by
timothy
on Thu Dec 11, 2008 03:03 PM
from the shutter-to-think dept.
from the shutter-to-think dept.
conner_bw writes "In a world first, a research group in Kyoto Japan has succeeded in processing and displaying optically received images directly from the human brain. Here's the Japanese press release for good measure. One step closer to broadcasting your dreams? The research is due to be published today in the US scientific journal Neuron."
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Device Reads Messages From Surface of the Brain 156 comments
Al writes "Technology Review has a story about a start-up company that has developed a more-accurate and less-invasive way to read a patient's thoughts. Neurolutions, based in St Louis, has developed a small implanted device that translates signals recorded from the surface of the brain into computer commands. The device, which is less invasive than implants and more accurate than scalp electrodes, uses a grid of electrodes placed directly on the surface of the brain to monitor electrical activity. This technology is currently used to find the origin of seizures in patients with uncontrolled epilepsy before surgery. But the company says it could also help paralyzed patients control a computer and perhaps prosthetic limbs using their thoughts. Tests involving more than 20 patients have shown that people can quickly learn to move a cursor on a computer screen using their brain activity."
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Predictably (Score:5, Funny)
No more lack of artistic skills for me (Score:5, Interesting)
I have lots of cool images in my head for comics and wallpaper, however I lack the artistic talent to bring those images from my mind to paper/photoshop. Maybe soon I will be able to compensate for my lack of artistic ability.
Re:No more lack of artistic skills for me (Score:5, Interesting)
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Kinda neat, not that exciting though (Score:4, Interesting)
The visual cortex is one of the more understood areas of the brain, and decoding V1/V2 is low-hanging fruit. To the extent that memory and dreams back-project to these areas, perhaps recording parts of these experiences would be possible.
Making this practical and inexpensive would be quite a practical breakthrough though - imagine being able to imagine something and import it into GIMP from a headband. Doing this through MRI would be impractical unless someone would be able to keep the image stable in their head for long enough for a high resolution scan of the area (and bear the ~$700/hour cost of MRI).
Re:Kinda neat, not that exciting though (Score:5, Insightful)
Can we "keep images in our heads" at all? When I try to, it is more of a feeling than an image, and it's a fragmentary one at that. Wouldn't it make sense if our imagination worked a lot like our vision, i.e. we can only focus on small bits of the visual field at once, and so would only be able to imagine those pieces and attributes of an image pertinent to our needs or wants?
I'm free-balling here, mind. I can't seem to put coherent, complete images in my head, but others very well might.
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Re:Kinda neat, not that exciting though (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Kinda neat, not that exciting though (Score:5, Funny)
And imagine spending the next week try to figure out GIMP to be able to do anything with it~
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Does it get lonely up in your crystal tower? (Score:5, Insightful)
"The current accomplishment is low hanging fruit and therefore uninteresting. Surprising, really, that they found funding for such an unnecessary demonstration at all! By commercializing this technology, it would become sufficiently interesting to deserve my royal approval."
Belittling humanity's incremental advancement as if you're a third party, how's that working out for you?
I think it's tremendously exciting. Thanks for the buzzkill though, it reminds me to get off the computer and interact with people of my choosing.
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This is NOT new (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, it is (Score:5, Informative)
Didn't read the full article, but from the abstract
The article you linked to seems to only be able to tell which object a person saw from their fMRI. I believe it required established measurements too, IE "this part of the brain lights up when they see a face. In blind studies, that part of the brain lit up, so they must have seen a face."
Whether it required a calibration for each individual or not, no image reconstruction was done: it's not the same thing at all.
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World first? I think not! (Score:5, Funny)
THEY have been able to do this for decades! Where is your tinfoil hat now? Ha!
I still wonder (Score:5, Interesting)
Not impressed (Score:5, Funny)
Dr. Walter Bishop (Cambridge) was doing this in the '70s.
Feedback Loop? (Score:5, Interesting)
Nope, dreams would just be noise (Score:5, Informative)
Dreams appear to be based on the 'noise' coming in, but a lot of interpretation is applied (and without imposed constraints of consistency or logic). A common game/prank [ultimatecampresource.com] involves people asking yes/no questions about an alleged dream, but the answers they get are based on some simple scheme like "yes if the last word in the question they ask ends in a consonant". Surprisingly detailed 'stories' get constructed... by the person asking the questions. (Here's what appears to be an online version [callenish.com].) Actual dreams seem to be built in an analogous way, with the subconscious 'asking questions' of the senses (which are just feeding in 'static') and weaving an experience out of them.
I'd guess that 'eavesdropping' on dreams via this means would only get the kind of swirling colors and such you 'see' when you close your eyes.
TLJ (Score:4, Insightful)
Yet Another Unnew Result (Score:5, Informative)
The primary visual cortex (V1) has already been shown to be retinotopic. What's being seen can be mapped directly from the cortex. It's crude and low-res, but it works.
20 years ago a researcher working with Karl Pribram at Radford University was able to detect signals from small cellular assemblies of the visual cortex that represented a particular shape being viewed without mapping the entire shape from V1.
In both these, the images were received directly from the brain. In both they were digitally processed and presented. In all three what was retrieved was not an image, but was a pattern of neural electrical activity that they had already determined represented a particular visual field. They could not (in keeping with the /. tendency to represent reality with fiction) for instance, retrieve the third frame of a series of images that had been briefly presesnted. They would have had to show the image for some time that record EEG from the appropriate areas for long enough that they could get a good correlation when showing it a second time.
The Opposite (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder if the process can be reversed, and images can be fed into the brain to create a dream sequence? Will people who really hate their reality use this as an escape and never try to wake up again?
Cool story!
For the last time... (Score:5, Informative)
People read blurby summaries, which don't include the results, the full reasoning, methods, etc, and then act as if it's the fault of the researchers. It's absurd, that's neither the paper nor the direct work of the researchers, it's some non-scientist working for a news source. Read the actual paper, TFA in these cases are rarely any better than TFS.
http://download.cell.com/neuron/pdf/PIIS0896627308009586.pdf [cell.com]
There's the PDF. It does have the very pixelated images. I haven't had time to read through it.
As always, don't complain to me if you don't happen to have a subscription, and not having a subscription is no reason to act as if the results aren't real.
Parent
Re:No pictures? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Dreaming Is A Private Thing (Score:4, Insightful)
No he did not.
He wrote a story about something like this. People ahve thought about doing this for years.
There is a difference in predicting something, and writing a story.
He also wrote about a bunch of stuff that never happens, and won't likely happen.
I like the mans work, but come on if he gets put any higher on a pedestal he'll be able to touch the moon.
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Re:Dreaming Is A Private Thing (Score:5, Funny)
As to writing about stuff that never happened, THIS never happened - until now. The "hyperdrive" (what Roddenberry renamed "warp drive") was never invented - yet. Roddenberry and his writers were prescient, too. I remember a world without cell phones, flat screen talking computers, self-opening doors, and space shuttles (I remember a world without space travel at all).
Wow. Your UID should have a minus sign in front of it.
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Re:Dreaming Is A Private Thing (Score:5, Funny)
Sorry - If you don't recognize the quote and have no context, it's not funny at all.
Vonnegut [wikipedia.org] (misspelled in my post above) became honorary president of the American Humanist Association [wikipedia.org] after Isaac Asimov [wikipedia.org], their former president, passed on. As such, he had the somewhat awkward honor of addressing the Association at their first meeting after losing their president and had to come up with some way to say goodbye to Isaac and start his speech. (If you're unfamiliar with Humanism [wikipedia.org], it's an entirely human-based religion/philosophy. Its members are largely atheist or agnostic and practice strict scientific skepticism while shunning religious superstitions or unsupported beliefs - Heaven/Hell included. The idea that Asimov, as president of the AHA, would have any literal belief in Heaven would be ludicrous.)
According to Vonnegut, opening his speech with
Isaac's in heaven now.
not only did a great job of breaking the ice in a very awkward situation, but set the entire ball-room laughing out loud.
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Re:Pics or it didn't happen (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe this image will not require a subscription, although I suspect it will.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/cache/MiamiImageURL/B6WSS-4V4113M-P-7/0?wchp=dGLbVtz-zSkzk [sciencedirect.com]
On the off chance it does, keep in mind this is not the full article. Critiques along the lines of "this doesn't prove anything," or "They should have done X" are premature if you haven't read the full (journal) article. If you thought of it, they probably covered that in the article you're not willing to pay for.
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Re:This is so cool! (Score:5, Insightful)
This , if true , will have HUGE implications - we'll be able to see what people THINK.
Data in V1/V2 does not constitute cognition, those areas constitute pretty much a visual map of data gathered by the eye (roughly). Its doubtful that imagined visuals are even represented in these areas. This, in other words, doesn't provide any insight into thoughts, just what people see.
I admit, though, that this is awesome. If we can read it, we theoretically could write to it, which would allow for direct neural interfaces.
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