Scientists closer to knowing what's on our mind

Researchers at the University of Washington have hit upon a way to read and translate thoughts into words and restore 'speech' to the deprived ones.

At the Centre for Innovation in Neuroscience and Technology, director Eric Leuthardt led a team of scientists to unearth a path for following word formation in the deepest corners of the brain as humans think and speak.

The research, published in the 'Journal of Neural Engineering', was aided by networks of electrodes to help investigators take a close look at words forming in the brain.

The region of the brain that creates some 40 odd sounds which make the English language was detected.

Further in the research, they found each of these sounds being marked by a singular signal which they could watch as the subjects expressed in their minds or verbally.

This could imply that paralytic patients or others can translate their thoughts into words via computer programme.

Research and its findings
In order to identify signals the brain transmits during word creation, the scientists conducted a study.

The team roped in four patients of critical epilepsy with a view to diagnosing the cause of the fits. 64 electrodes were implanted in each of their heads, that is, on the surface of their brains.

However, Leuthardt went an extra mile to scrutinise the regions of the brain concerned with human speech.

Asking the subjects to emit four sounds continually – ‘oo’, ‘ah’, ‘eh’, and ‘ee’- scientists tracked the motor cortex, Wenicke’s and Broca’s spheres of the brain for signals contributing to speech formation.

Their efforts were crowned with success as they could discern the corresponding electrical signals.

“What it shows is that the brain is not the black box that we have philosophically assumed it to be for generations past,” the Sunday Times quoted Leuthardt as saying.

“I'm not going to say that I can fully read someone's mind. I can't. But I have evidence now that it is possible.”

Since four signals is too negligible in the formation of sentences, more research would be necessary in order to watch creation of complete sentences.

Further revelations
Leuthardt, in the course of the research, further discovered a unique signal the brain emits the time people have just sounds on their minds while it was very different as they speak.

The research holds a big promise for the future that will open a new dimension altogether for the medical field. Besides reading private thoughts, doctors are closer to watch what people intend to communicate.

With electrode treatment on the brain prevalent for people with serious ailment, experts hope that the research will one day gift the power of speech to people with locked-in syndrome.

According to reports, Leuthardt has taken the investigation to a higher level by identifying signals corresponding to more phonemes. But this was after the publication of the research paper.

A new technology, experts believe, can potentially be borne out of this that could mirror mind's thoughts without any kind of surgery as well as track ways of communication that are basically thought-oriented.