通過使用功能性核磁共振(fMRI)，研究人員報導說他們向著製造思想閱讀機器邁出了第一步。
通過使用fMRI掃描觀察受試者大腦血流來測繪大腦活動，倫敦大學學院(UCL; UK) 的科學家能夠說出受試者是否正在思考，甚至在其本人不知道的情況之下。在參加實驗者觀察計算機屏幕上不同物體歪向右側或者左側的時候，UCL科學家評估視覺皮層的大腦活動。兩秒中的大腦活動檢測已經足以讓科學家預測出志願者正在觀看的歪向一側的物體，其準確性高達80%。
即使當這些物體被偽裝讓志願者無法看見，他們的大腦活動仍然可以被用於預測這些物體是否存在，提示大腦潛意識機制能夠記錄這些物體。從被測試者的大腦活動中，研究人員可以比其本人更多地知道他看見了什麼。這項研究結果報導在2005年4月25日的《自然神經科學》期刊之上。
UCL的研究人員Geraint Rees 說：「這是邁向能夠閱讀某人思想的第一步。如果我們的研究方法能夠被擴大，那樣只要從某人大腦活動中就可以預測某人正在想什麼或者看見了什麼。總體而言，這項技術能夠用於諸如測謊器之類的東西，但是仍然需要更多的研究。我們必須要搞清楚哪一個區域能夠預測某人在撒謊。這也許與視覺皮層不同，可能不會產生足夠強烈的信號。測謊器同時必須能夠在不同測試者中使用，我們目前只是根據單個測試者的大腦活動進行預測。」
這些研究人員報導他們下一步將研究大腦活動是否能夠被用於預測在時間變化時候的意識改變。
Reading Minds with fMRI
By utilizing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), researchers reported that they have made the first steps towards constructing a mind-reading device.
By plotting brain activity by looking at blood flow in the study participants』 brains on fMRI scans, scientists at the University College London (UCL; UK) could tell what a person was thinking, even when the individual was not conscious of it themselves. The UCL scientists assessed brain activity in the visual cortex while the participants viewed different objects slanted to the right or left on a computer screen. One two-second measurement of brain activity was sufficient for scientists to predict with 80% accuracy which of the two slanted objects the volunteers were seeing.
Even when objects were disguised to appear invisible to the volunteer, their brain activity could still be used to predict which of the objects was present, suggesting that unconscious mechanisms in the brain were documenting the object. The researchers could tell more about what had been shown to the individuals from their brain activity then the individuals themselves. The study was published in the April 25, 2005, issue of the journal Nature Neuroscience.
「This is the first basic step to reading somebody’s mind. If our approach could be expanded upon, it might be possible to predict what someone was thinking or seeing from their brain activity alone,」 said UCL researcher, Dr. Geraint Rees. 「In principle, the technique could be applied to a device such as a lie detector but much more research would be needed. You would need to explore which regions of the brain might predict whether someone was lying. These could be very different to the visual cortex and might not carry strong enough signals. A lie detector would also need to generalize across subjects, whereas we were basing our predictions on the brain activity of each individual.」
The researchers reported that their next step is to explore whether brain activity can be used to forecast how consciousness changes over time.
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－－－本文由美迪醫療網成揚編譯