Computational Neuroscience

"Researchers from Japan’s ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories have developed new brain analysis technology that can reconstruct the images inside a person’s mind and display them on a computer monitor, it was announced on December 11. According to the researchers, further development of the technology may soon make it possible to view other people’s dreams while they sleep.

The scientists were able to reconstruct various images viewed by a person by analyzing changes in their cerebral blood flow. Using a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine, the researchers first mapped the blood flow changes that occurred in the cerebral visual cortex as subjects viewed various images held in front of their eyes. Subjects were shown 400 random 10 x 10 pixel black-and-white images for a period of 12 seconds each. While the fMRI machine monitored the changes in brain activity, a computer crunched the data and learned to associate the various changes in brain activity with the different image designs.

Then, when the test subjects were shown a completely new set of images, such as the letters N-E-U-R-O-N, the system was able to reconstruct and display what the test subjects were viewing based solely on their brain activity.

For now, the system is only able to reproduce simple black-and-white images. But Dr. Kang Cheng, a researcher from the RIKEN Brain Science Institute, suggests that improving the measurement accuracy will make it possible to reproduce images in color." (I'm unsure of the original source of this article - I found the same one on various news sites)

This is absolutely fascinating and terrifying to me. As a child, I remember thinking, "I wish I could hook a computer up to my mind while I sleep so I could watch my dreams over in the morning." The possibility is looking increasingly more likely.

My dreams of late have been especially vivid and even in waking, I sometimes have flashes of inconsequential moments from my childhood. This certainly plays a role in my work. Art, for me, has almost always largely been a means of expressing those wordless thoughts and feelings which would otherwise linger internally. The idea that one day, a machine might be able to do something similar is... staggering.