Researchers Can Find Out Where You Are by Scanning Your Brain

Researchers Can Find Out Where You Are by Scanning Your Brain

blogs.discovermagazine.com...

Using not much more than a brain scanner, scientists have successfully found a way to read people’s minds—or at least, certain thoughts in them. A London research team was able to determine where its volunteer subjects were located, in a computer-generated virtual environment, by using fMRI scanning to analyze activation patterns in the hippocampus area of their brains. After correlating this information with the subjects’ movements, the researchers found that they could accurately predict their subjects’ locations based solely on the scanner read-out.

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[edit on 02/21/09 by daeoeste]

Caareeeepy!! Now we really have a reason for tinfoil hats! This could be scary, especially when coupled with other means of tracking and surveillance.

It seems to me that they will not have to chip any one, when all of these systems(phone triangulation, G.P.S., surveillance blimps,etc.etc.) seem to be setting up an Orwellian nightmare of tracking redundancy. Are these technologies getting out of hand? I think so. What do y'all think of this?

blogs.discovermagazine.com...
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 02/21/09 by daeoeste]

This has the potential for being very good or very bad.

Apparently, since this requires an MRI machine to work I am not that afraid yet.

Is this used to determine the layout of a location and then compare that layout to layouts the computer recognizes thus determining where the person is? If so, could be used to discover the layout of locations in dreams? That would be monumental because it would allow objective studying of dreams instead of relying on testimony.

reply to post by Studious

Yeah, I see what you are saying. I am not as worried about me more than future generations. What if Fmri machines get portable? They have gotten smaller, and it would be reasonable to assume that this trend in reducing the size will continue.

As far as the aspect of studying dreams, that is an awesome thought. It did not strike me that this could be used for beneficial purposes. Thanks for the positive addition to this story.