By Sarah Wie
Scientists have recently developed a new mind-reading device through a newly designed algorithm. With this algorithm, the researchers were able to decipher what people were trying to say in their minds based on the brain’s activity. This new decoder was not developed to give people supernatural mind-reading capabilities, but rather to allow individuals who are unable to speak a means of communicating with others.
A sound wave stimulates a set of neurons within the inner ear, and this sensory information is then relayed to specific areas of the brain that transform the sounds into words. The main question of the researchers of UC Berkeley was: Does speaking aloud and reading ‘inside your head’ stimulate the same nerve cells within the brain? These researchers studied the brain activity of seven individuals undergoing epilepsy surgery using a specialized technique called electrocorticography, which is the measuring of nerve cell activity through electrodes on the surface of the brain. The research team then took recordings of the subjects’ brain activity in each of the following situations: reading aloud, silently reading, and doing nothing.
While the individuals were reading aloud, the researchers recorded the specific neurons activated during particular words of the speech, and then used these to form a decoder for each individual. The researchers then implemented the decoder on the brain activity of participants during silent reading, and they found that the decoder was able to translate the words of the subjects using only neuronal firing patterns.
This decoder was also able to determine which music a person was listening to by playing songs to the subjects and then recording the neuronal firing patterns stimulated by the music. However, these algorithms are not accurate or developed enough to be used for people who are unable to speak, but the researchers are hoping to further the decoder’s progress by recording brain activity during particular pronunciations of words and speeds of speech.
