Barry Gibb

Naked Thoughts : Seeing the Brain in Action

In the blockbuster, Minority Report, Tom Cruise walks through a shopping mall, only to be harassed by talking advertisements that identify and talk to him. It's not just that the technology recognizes our hero, but due to information that has accumulated about his buying habits, they talk to him directly; they seem to know his innermost desires.

Progress in a technique called functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is allowing us to see thoughts as they occur within the human brain. How?

First, imagine a pool, the water fantastically still. A dog appears

from the eaves and leaps into the water. Now, imagine that's the

water in your brain. Thanks to a powerful magnet, the water molecules

are all facing exactly the same way, calm. The dog is a thought

you are just about to have and where it hits the water is exactly

where you have that thought. Splash! Your thought causes that area

of your brain to demand more oxygen and more blood. As the blood

arrives, it provides us with a visible indication of those parts

of the brain responsible for producing the 'thought'.

Frightening stimuli activate the brain's 'fear centres'	Experiencing a smell activates the parts of the brain involved in olfactory recognition and interpretation.
Some specific tasks are handled in discrete regions of the brain, on one side only. In this fMRI image the yellow/red 'hotspots' indicate the active brain regions.

The significance of this information is immense. Besides providing

a greater understanding of how certain diseases affect the brain,

it will allow us to see what happens in your brain when you think

of an old friend, drink milk or feel anger. And by recording the

patterns of activity when someone is thinking truthfully, or hiding

a lie, this technology could provide us with a way of telling the

difference. Collect enough data and, eventually, you wouldn't even

need to ask someone what they're thinking; you could just study

their scan.

And it could work both ways. Imagine a company with a new product.

They want you to need this product. Their researchers have found

that the sensation of 'need' lights up a specific region of the

brain. By using a precise combination of sound and images in their

new advert, could they cause that region of your brain to light

up, to elicit the sensation of needing? Far fetched, perhaps, but

not impossible.

So, if you find yourself sitting in the driving seat of a new car

before you remember that you can't drive, or buying a Phil Collins

box-set, or some other inexplicable or equally improbable behaviour,

you might want to start watching less television, and dust off your

old copy of Nineteen Eighty Four.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

All images courtesy of Dr Mark Lythgoe, a Neurophysiologist and

lecturer in Radiology and Physics at the Institute of Child Health

and Great Ormond Street Hospital (www.mlythgoe.com), except 'Ssshh!',

courtesy of Dr Barry Gibb.

- February 2005

About the Author

Barry Gibb is a freelance author with a background in neuroscience and virology