Reading Minds a REALITY (mental images of thoughts reconstructed)

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Scientists have used brain scanners to detect and reconstruct the faces that people are thinking of, according to a a study accepted for publication this month in the journal NeuroImage.

In the study, scientists hooked participants up to an fMRI brain scanner – which determines activity in different parts of the brain by measuring blood flow – and showed them images of faces. Then, using only the brain scans, the scientists were able to create images of the faces the people were looking at.

“It is mind reading,” said Alan S. Cowen, a graduate student at the University of California Berkeley who co-authored the study with professor Marvin M. Chun from Yale and Brice A. Kuhl from New York University.

The study says it is the first to try to reconstruct faces from thoughts

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Images from dreams are also detectable.

“And you can even imagine,” Cowen said, “way down the road, a witness to a crime might want to come in and reconstruct a suspect’s face.”

How soon could that happen?

“It really depends on advances in brain imaging technology, more so than the mathematical analysis. It could be 10, 20 years away.”

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