US scientists turn brain waves into actual words ~ Technology Update

What will you do if someone will know what you are thinking? The day is closer as scientists are now able to read the minds. A new study conducted in the University of Californiahas enabled scientists to find a way to decipher actual words from human brain waves.

A team of neuroscientists worked with a group of epilepsy patients who were under the treatment for difficult curable seizures.

They implanted the required electrodes deep in patients' brains to locate the source of seizures and help doctors remove the malfunctioning tissue.

Mind Reading Device

“During normal process about a week the patients are just sitting around in their hospital rooms and some of them were generous enough to participate in our experiment,” said study leader Brian Pasley of the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute at the University of California, Berkeley.

While the patients' brain waves were being recorded, researchers chased the waves through a program to translate the brain's electronic signals into actual sounds.

“Researchers are still a long way from actually reading people's minds, but it may be possible one day,” said Pasley.

Although the new research may sound like scary science fiction, it can have enormous positive uses for patients who have lost their speaking ability.

“If we are somehow able to encode someone's thoughts instantaneously that might have great benefits for the thousands of severely disabled people who are unable to communicate right now,” Pasley noted.