Kaku, stresses continuing improvement in the power of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines and a range of other techniques and technologies used to correlate brain activity and mental activity.
Anyone inclined to dismiss brain-scan neuroscience as a new phrenology may be surprised by how much has been achieved and by how hospitable it is to the notion that different people’s brains work differently. Provided that, for a given individual, particular thoughts – visualizing the letter “a”, say, or wagging the left pinkie – reliably go along with particular patterns of neuron firing, as detected by a sensor, it becomes possible to compile an inventory of correlated thoughts and patterns.
Once such an inventory becomes large enough, remarkable things can happen. People who have lost the ability to speak or write can type with their minds. People who have lost the ability to control their limbs can move prosthetic ones, just by thinking. Electrode-mediated connections fill in for downed neural connections
Anyone inclined to dismiss brain-scan neuroscience as a new phrenology may be surprised by how much has been achieved and by how hospitable it is to the notion that different people’s brains work differently. Provided that, for a given individual, particular thoughts – visualizing the letter “a”, say, or wagging the left pinkie – reliably go along with particular patterns of neuron firing, as detected by a sensor, it becomes possible to compile an inventory of correlated thoughts and patterns.
Once such an inventory becomes large enough, remarkable things can happen. People who have lost the ability to speak or write can type with their minds. People who have lost the ability to control their limbs can move prosthetic ones, just by thinking. Electrode-mediated connections fill in for downed neural connections
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