"Mind-reading" experiment highlights brain

"Mind-reading" experiment highlights how brain records emories

(ScienceDaily) It may be possible to "read" a person's memories just by looking at brain activity, according to research carried out by Wellcome Trust scientists.

In a study published in the journal Current Biology they show that our memories are recorded in regular patterns, a finding that challenges current scientific thinking.

Demis Hassabis and Professor Eleanor Maguire at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at UCL (University College London) have previously studied the role of a small area of the brain known as the hippocampus, which is crucial for navigation, memory recall, and imagining future events.

Now the researchers have shown how the hippocampus records memory.

When we move around, nerve cells (neurons) known as "place cells" located in the hippocampus, activate to tell us where we are.

Hassabis, Maguire, and colleagues used a functional MRI (fMRI) scanner, which measures changes in blood flow within the brain, to examine the activity of these places cells as a volunteer navigated around a virtual reality environment. The data were then analyzed by a computer algorithm developed by Demis Hassabis.

"We asked whether we could see any interesting patterns in the neural activity that could tell us what the participants were thinking, or in this case where they were," explains Professor Maguire, a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow.

"Surprisingly, just by looking at the brain data we could predict exactly where they were in the virtual reality environment. In other words, we could 'read' their spatial memories." More

VIDEO: Brain scans of the future

Psychologists have found that thought patterns used to recall the past and imagine the future are strikingly similar. Using functional magnetic...

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Mind and Brain

• Memory
• Intelligence
• Brain Injury
• Neuroscience
• Language Acquisition
• Educational Psychology

Strange Science (Reference)

• Amnesia
• Memory bias
• Functional neuroimaging
• Limbic system

Brains of meditating monks get MRI scans

Matt Danzico (BBC News, New York)

VIDEO: Meditating Buddhist monk submits to brain scan in fMRI

In a laboratory tucked away off a noisy New York City street, a soft-spoken neuroscientist has been placing Tibetan monks into a car-sized brain scanner to better understand the ancient practice of Buddhist meditation.

But could this unusual research not only unravel the secrets of leading a harmonious life but also shed light on some of the world's more mysterious diseases?

Zoran Josipovic, a research scientist and adjunct professor at New York University, says he has been peering into the brains of monks while they meditate in an attempt to understand how their brains reorganize themselves during the exercise.

Since 2008, the researcher has been placing the minds and bodies of prominent Buddhist figures into a five-tonne (5,000 kg) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine.

The scanner tracks blood flow within the monks' heads as they meditate inside its clunky walls, which echoes a musical rhythm when the machine is operating.

Dr. Josipovic, who also moonlights as a Buddhist monk, says he is hoping to find how some meditators achieve a state of "nonduality" or "oneness" with the world, a unifying consciousness between a person and his/her environment.

Zoran Josipovic looking at brain scans on a computer. The study specifically looks at the default network in the brain, which controls self-reflective thoughts.

"One thing that meditation does for those who practice it a lot is that it cultivates attentional skills," Dr. Josipovic says, adding that those harnessed skills can help lead to a more tranquil and happier way of being.

"Meditation research, particularly in the last 10 years or so, has shown to be very promising because it points to an ability of the brain to change and optimize in a way we didn't know previously was possible."

When one relaxes into a state of oneness, the neural networks in experienced practitioners change as they lower the psychological wall between themselves and their environments, Dr. Josipovic says.

And this reorganization in the brain may lead to what some meditators claim to be a deep harmony between themselves and their surroundings.

Shifting attention
Dr. Josipovic's research is part of a larger effort better to understand what scientists have dubbed the default network in the brain. More