Scientists map human thought for the first time

For the first time scientists have been able to track human thought by imaging rapidly fluctuating brain activity with the use of fast fMRI.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) measures changes in blood oxygenation, which were earlier thought to be too slow to detect the subtle neuronal activity associated with higher order brain functions.

The new discovery that fast fMRI could detect rapid brain oscillations comes as a significant step towards realising a central goal of neuroscience research - mapping the brain networks responsible for human cognitive functions such as perception, attention, and awareness.

"This work demonstrates the potential of fMRI for mapping healthy neural networks as well as those that may contribute to neurological diseases such as dementia and other mental health disorders, which are significant national and global health problems," said Guoying Liu from the US National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), PTI reported.

The fMRI detects local increases in oxygen as blood is delivered to a working part of the brain. The technique had been used for identifying which areas in the brain control functions such as vision, hearing, or touch.

However, standard fMRI can only detect the blood flow replenishing an area of the brain several seconds after it had performed a function.

But new rapid fMRI technology, is capable of detecting brain oscillations around 10 times faster than previously possible. Though the MRI scanner is the same  used in fMRI, it uses a new pulse sequence technique a bit like an over-the-air software upgrade that does require any change in hardware.

In a new study which was carried out at the Harvard Medical School and the Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, researchers applied this fast fMRI tech to track brain activity during human thought, for the first time.

Digital Trends quoted Laura D Lewis, first author on the paper, ''Right now, we can say whether a picture prompts an emotional response in someone. Fast fMRI can detect oscillatory neural activity in humans. We hope that maybe using this technology it will be possible to disambiguate a cascade of things that are happening. Instead of just saying, 'here's a reaction' you can work out an exact sequence. You can start to tease out all of the different processes that are involved. It will be challenging, but we think that's where this research is headed.''