Brain scanning yields discoveries

Scans that show brain activity are slowly unravelling how the brain works.

Area responsible for dreaming: dreaming

Area resonsible for hypnosis:hypnosis

Clearly brain scanning is creating a revolution in studying the brain, but there are also practical applications:

Brain scanning may become the new lie detector:detecting lies

lie detection

lie detection

As the technology is perfected, more and more ethical questions will be raised. Can you imagine going to the airport, being watched on video, x-rayed, sniffed by dogs, searched... passing all the tests....and then being stopped because your brain scan indicates you could be "contemplating violence?"

Article raising concerns: concerns

I find this an interesting topic. Comments are welcome.

Great topic IMO. I'm going to study this some more - cos at first glsnce, some of the future implications of this technology are quite frightening.

"Who says I'm paranoid - and why do they want to know anyway?"

from what I understand they are also using this technology to help better understand things like alcoholism , and things like addictions to drugs etc...

hopefully in time they will be better equiped with knowledge to help people that really need it

[edit on 10-9-2004 by boosted]

i would like to see 2 uses in technology of what the brain is up 2 in regards to ...

1. hypnosis - what the brain does whilst watching tv

2. lie detection - brain patterns of politicians (especially prime ministers & presidents) giving speeches

Wow, I just felt like watching a Sci-Fi movie, maybe I just directed that picture.

I think the article writer has a overdoes of what I call "Big Big Brother."

dont worry, the most of the world are feeling the same..RAGE!!!


[edit on 10-9-2004 by Kollapse]

I am involved in exactly this sort or research (fMRI), and I really cant see it being used to supplement the devices we use for airport security for a very VERY long time, if ever. It requires a magnet too strong and too large to just wave over the body, like a metal screening wand, and the data analysis required to produce these images are too complex and time consuming at this moment in time to have a real time (or close enough to it) answer. Our knowledge of MR physics and the physical boundaries it poses dictates that this discipline is still infantile in its development, and will still require large facilities for the housing and implementation of its technology.

Oh, and relating to Boosted's response. Some areas of research that utilize fMRI technology include alzheimers, parkinsons, substance abuse, numerous psychiatric disorders, cardiovascular physiology and neurosurgical planning. There are many more but those are a few that I can think of off the top of my head that colleagues are involved with.

I don't know, but all these probing technologies cannot be very accurate do to the fact that the human brain can be manipulate into believing something that is not true making the subject come out positive in a lie.

Think about it, these types of new brain scans can be used for other things bedside finding the truth they can also make an innocent person a guilty one with some manipulation.

I will never trust a technology that is bases on brain manipulation.

There is no manipulation of the brain by an outside source. fMRI is based on the fact that the harder certain areas of the brain work to do their "job", there in a concomittant increase in blood flow to that area. With proper scanning sequences, you can quantify that increase and produce an image, or an activation map. The only manipulation going on is done by your own body in physiological response to the activity being presented.

Originally posted by cimmerius

As the technology is perfected, more and more ethical questions will be raised. Can you imagine going to the airport, being watched on video, x-rayed, sniffed by dogs, searched... passing all the tests....and then being stopped because your brain scan indicates you could be "contemplating violence?"

Alot of people would get stopped for contemplating violence. Say they were thinking about a violent movie or a violent game.

Sorry but. MRI scan the brain and I know very well how is does it, but external manipulation in the environment will affect the brain all our sensor can be manipulated by that any stimuli can plays a big part of how the brain reacts.

Yes, which is why fMRI technology is chained to a purely hospital/research environment, as I stated before. There is too many things to reproduce and calibrate in order to to produce results that are cohesive across all paradigms and controls, which is why the utilization of this technology as some sort of threat deterrent is way, way off in the future, if it will ever occur at all. Even within the research itself, you have too many factors to cancel out to even get a decent activation map of a simple task, like a finger tap, if you include environmental factors (outside of controlled hospital environments), you'll get a lot of noise and artifact and a worthless result.

Panamint,

Exactly my point, you most be a knowledgeable in psychology, my is kind of rusty but it was a subject beside history that I enjoyed a lot when I was in college.

As the technology is perfected, more and more ethical questions will be raised. Can you imagine going to the airport, being watched on video, x-rayed, sniffed by dogs, searched... passing all the tests....and then being stopped because your brain scan indicates you could be "contemplating violence?"

Whoa talk about creating a true Minority Report.

Panamint - Do you know of any resaerch using MRIs or EEGs to determine the type of brain actvity present in yogi and monks when controlling autonomic functions (heart rate, blood pressure, body temp etc.)?

No, nothing I've heard of regarding monks or yogi, though that would be a great piece of research, intertwining many different disciplines and technologies together. EEG, MEG, ECG, MRI, biofeedback, all in one swoop!

One of the things have always wondered was just how much control the mind can rely have over the body. For example I once heard of tibetan monks who go into caves in the mountains. dig a hole, fill it wth water, get in, let it freeze, and then melt it with ther own body heat. How much control over autonomic functions can be gained? Heartrate, blood pressure, etc are well known but what about hormone release? Can a man learn to regulate his own adrenaline and such?