Scientists have discovered how to ‘read minds by scanning brain activity and reproducing images of what people are seeing - or even remembering. Researchers have been able to convert into crude video footage the brain activity stimulated by what a person is watching or recalling. The breakthrough raises the prospect of significant benefits, such as allowing people who are unable to move or speak to communicate via visualisation of their thoughts; recording people’s dreams; or allowing police to identify criminals by recalling the memories of a witness. However, it could also herald a new Big Brother era, similar to that envisaged in the Hollywood film Minority Report, in which an individual’s private thoughts can be readily accessed by the authorities. Earlier this year, Jack Gallant and Thomas Naselaris, two neurologists from the University of California, Berkeley, managed to ‘decode’ static images seen by the person from activity in the brain’s visual cortex. Last week Gallant and Shinji Nishimoto – another neurologist – went one step further by revealing that it is possible to decode signals generated in the brain by moving scenes. In an experiment which has yet to be peer reviewed, Gallant and Nishimoto, […]