Neuroscientists read people's intentions with brain scan

Minority Report has proven itself to be a fairly prescient movie on more than one occasion and, as this latest development shows, it seems that researchers haven't mined those Dickian ideas dry just yet. While we've already seen some software that supposedly helped to predict future crimes, The Guardian is now reporting that a team of neuroscientists have brought pre-crime technology to a new, even creepier level, developing a brain scan that can purportedly read people's intentions before they act on them. It's apparently still a ways off from going into service, however, with tests of the technology currently centered around predicting a subject's response to a simple math question. Nonetheless, the researchers seem to be well aware of the technology's potentially more complex uses, and are calling for an ethical debate over its possible use in interrogation. On the flipside, they also see the technology eventually being used in some less ethically-challenging applications, such as helping people control artificial limbs or operate a computer simply by thinking about it.

[Smoke_Dawg_187 @ Feb 9th 2007 8:10PM]

Why don't people focus on fixing people with dabilitating disease instead of trying to read their minds?

[Chris M @ Feb 9th 2007 8:14PM]

Well, once they fix the disease; their funding gets cut off.

It's best for all of us (except those suffering from said diseases) if we just milk it.

That said, this is creepy.

[dow @ Feb 9th 2007 9:03PM]

I'm certainly very curious about what they're doing as well. Of course, I had one of these functional MRIs done of my brain too, and I guess I fall into the category where it is not able to detect any specific function. Ha.

Anyway, right now the technology is very very limited, and basically detects if certain parts of the brain are getting increased blood flow in response to the patient being asked to do certain tasks or thinking certain thoughts.

The technology will improve over time and it is hard to predict what it will eventually be used for. That said, right now we use it to try and map brain function, usually before we go in and remove brain tumors or vascular malformations. That way, if we go in and whack out a chunk of brain, we want to make sure that the patient's language center and other important areas are away from where we're working.

[JJ @ Feb 9th 2007 9:23PM]

I'd like to see this technology improved to the point we can do two things:
1.) Help the disabled so they can see, hear, speak, walk, run, or raise their hands. That would be awesome.

2.) Read a suspected criminal's mind to prove his innocence. Much better than DNA testing alone.
And, if the software matures and gets perfected, have it tell the difference between an imagined memory created on the spot or just recently and a memory located in long term.

[nadeem @ Feb 10th 2007 7:29AM]

i am patient of mysthenia graves please let let me know about my treatment.

[Major Malfunction @ Feb 10th 2007 12:27PM]

Glad they are moving on this. About 18 years ago, I wrote a paper and was told it wasn't possible to use fMRI technology to read thoughts, as well as using VR to help people overcome phobias and pain without the use of a psychologist and the VR process was realtime based on how the mind is impacted by the events taking place. All three of these are now being used. Very glad someone did something with it.

So, I'll reserve judgement on all things that were once perceived as impossible since I know full well that if a person can think it, it can come true... eventually.

[psilo @ Feb 10th 2007 2:08PM]

this project claims to be 70% accurate... and thats only 20% better than a random guess... plus the questions were "we'd like you to add or subtract these two numbers" and "intention" was found by the computer if it could guess the resulting number... I don't think this system would work if you asking anything worthwhile... it also has to be operated in the moment... i can't even see this used as a lie detector in the near future

[John Doe @ Feb 10th 2007 3:08PM]

"with tests of the technology currently centered around predicting a subject's response to a simple math question"

Goodbye SAT tests. :-P

"OK sir if you will just sit in that chair over there, this will take about 2 minutes."


"OK. Well it shows that you will get 2300 on your test. Here is a printout of all the collages that have preapproved you. Next!"