Scientists extract images directly from brain (2008) • Hacker News Board

Re: Scientists extract images directly from brain (2008)

#11

Post by sho » Tue, Jul 07, 2009, 9:42 PM UTC

Salvatore wrote: post #8

On one hand, this is great. It will lead to new technology which will inevitably lead to better video games. On the other hand, this provides the opportunity for total loss of privacy. Forget freedom of speech, people might start to attack the freedom to think certain thoughts. In other news, China and Iran are thrilled at this new science.

"In other news, China and Iran are thrilled at this new science."

Why? Are they having problems with people imagining politically undesirable images?

I would think the West, with its insane war to protect the cartoon children, would have more use for such technology.

Re: Scientists extract images directly from brain (2008)

#12

Post by sho » Tue, Jul 07, 2009, 9:45 PM UTC

mquander wrote: post #7

Not to impugn the author's trustworthiness, but this is so astounding to me that I find it somewhat incredible. Does anyone have an English-language news source for this? The "extracted" pictures are an order of magnitude clearer than I would have thought possible.

Your skepticism is commendable, but the pictures are real. Here's the paper:

http://www.cell.com/neuron/abstract/S0896-6273%2808%2900958-...

Re: Scientists extract images directly from brain (2008)

#13

Post by mquander » Tue, Jul 07, 2009, 9:50 PM UTC

sho wrote: post #12

mquander wrote: post #7

Not to impugn the author's trustworthiness, but this is so astounding to me that I find it somewhat incredible. Does anyone have an English-language news source for this? The "extracted" pictures are an order of magnitude clearer than I would have thought possible.

Your skepticism is commendable, but the pictures are real. Here's the paper: http://www.cell.com/neuron/abstract/S0896-6273%2808%2900958-...

That's fantastic, and the full text is available there too. Thanks.

Re: Scientists extract images directly from brain (2008)

#14

Post by a-priori » Tue, Jul 07, 2009, 10:17 PM UTC

What they're doing is a high-resolution fMRI scan of V1 (primary visual cortex), a region of the brain that shows a "retinotopic map" of the visual field. It's been known for a while that it's possible to reconstruct an image from V1 activation. What this research shows is that fMRI imaging is now detailed enough to do this non-invasively.

Also, something cool about this research, and also a bit scary, is that it's also known that this region is activated by visual recall (a quick search revealed this: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=48...). I'm not sure if anyone has ever tried to reproduce an image from V1 activation during visual recall, so I don't know if it would be a coherent image. My guess is it would though, in which case an fMRI scan could detect an image of an "N" if you asked the person to picture the letter.

Pretty cool.

Re: Scientists extract images directly from brain (2008)

#15

Post by TrevorJ » Tue, Jul 07, 2009, 10:34 PM UTC

mquander wrote: post #7

Not to impugn the author's trustworthiness, but this is so astounding to me that I find it somewhat incredible. Does anyone have an English-language news source for this? The "extracted" pictures are an order of magnitude clearer than I would have thought possible.

I believe it, if only because I've read of them doing this with cats several years ago.

Re: Scientists extract images directly from brain (2008)

#16

Post by TrevorJ » Tue, Jul 07, 2009, 10:38 PM UTC

profquail wrote: post #3

TrevorJ wrote: post #2

I can see this being amazingly handy in the (far) future in terms of interface navigation and search. Just picture the icon of the program you want to launch, or the stock photo you are trying to find and boom.

That's already available, to some degree: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotiv_Systems (There are others as well, but I understand this is one of the best commercial products as of now).

Ah, yes I am familiar with this. I've used a similar device during some biofeedback treatment. The leap with the imaging tech is that it is a 1:1 correlation. As far as I am aware the other tech still relies on mapping cues from the brain that aren't directly 1:1 For example, boosting your high beta waves moves your game character forwards, etc. With the imaging technology, you don't have to perform mental gymnastics, you just "picture" the image you are after and the like.

Re: Scientists extract images directly from brain (2008)

#17

Post by ryanwaggoner » Tue, Jul 07, 2009, 10:47 PM UTC

My big question would be whether the patterns that they're detecting in the brain are similar for different people? For example, if I imagine an apple, do my "brain patterns" resemble someone else's when they also think of an apple? If not, seems like training this device would be a pain in the ass, because you'd have to do it for each person. But if so...imagine a huge resource of patterns for different thoughts, feelings, mental pictures, etc. Hopefully this comment makes sense...

Re: Scientists extract images directly from brain (2008)

#18

Post by joeyo » Tue, Jul 07, 2009, 10:57 PM UTC

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #17

My big question would be whether the patterns that they're detecting in the brain are similar for different people? For example, if I imagine an apple, do my "brain patterns" resemble someone else's when they also think of an apple? If not, seems like training this device would be a pain in the ass, because you'd have to do it for each person. But if so...imagine a huge resource of patterns for different thoughts, fe…

In general the patterns are the same and the brain areas involved are the same but there is definitely individual variability, too. There is probably much less individual variability in visual cortex than, say, language representation areas (consider English speakers vs Spanish speakers) but there is likely enough that they have to retrain their algorithms for each individual to achieve optimum discrimination.

Re: Scientists extract images directly from brain (2008)

#19

Post by dejb » Tue, Jul 07, 2009, 11:30 PM UTC

Salvatore wrote: post #8

On one hand, this is great. It will lead to new technology which will inevitably lead to better video games. On the other hand, this provides the opportunity for total loss of privacy. Forget freedom of speech, people might start to attack the freedom to think certain thoughts. In other news, China and Iran are thrilled at this new science.

In the long term technology like this will end privacy for those who want to participate in the modern economy. But you shouldn't assume it will happen in a 'top down' way that will benefit totalitarian governments. Totalitarian governments require secrecy to do their evil deeds.

Look at the spread of mobile cameras (mostly in phones). These have allowed many an injustice to be exposed. The police no longer feel like they have immunity to do whatever they want.

Consider the benefits of being able to scan the brains of those accused of crimes against humanity. If people understood that in the long term there are no secrets they would hesitate to do evil deeds.

Re: Scientists extract images directly from brain (2008)

#20

Post by delano » Tue, Jul 07, 2009, 11:50 PM UTC

Salvatore wrote: post #8

On one hand, this is great. It will lead to new technology which will inevitably lead to better video games. On the other hand, this provides the opportunity for total loss of privacy. Forget freedom of speech, people might start to attack the freedom to think certain thoughts. In other news, China and Iran are thrilled at this new science.

It'll go both ways.