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December 12, 2008 In a world first, a research group in Kyoto Prefecture has succeeded in processing and displaying optically received images directly from the human brain. The group of researchers at Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International, including Yukiyasu Kamitani and Yoichi Miyawaki, from its NeuroInformatics Department, said about 100 million images can be read, adding that dreams as well as mental images are likely to be visualized in the future in the same manner.Optically received images are converted to electrical signals in the retina and treated in the brain's visual cortex. In the recent experiment, the research group asked two people to look at 440 different still images one by one on a 100-pixel screen. Each of the images comprised random gray sections and flashing sections.The research group measured subtle differences in brain activity patterns in the visual cortexes of the two people with a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner. They then subdivided the images and recorded the subjects' recognition patterns.The research group later measured the visual cortexes of the two people who were looking at the word "neuron" and five geometric figures such as a square and a cross. Based on the stored brain patterns, the research group analyzed the brain activities and reconstructed the images of Roman letters and other figures, succeeding in recreating optically received images.Source: Yomiuri Shimbun/Associated Press
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