"Using the technology is 'like shining a torch, looking for writing
on a wall'." CT image: Charles O'Rear/Corbis

The brain scan that can read people's intentions
Call for ethical debate over possible use of new technology in
interrogation

Ian Sample, science correspondent
Friday February 9, 2007
The Guardian

A team of world-leading neuroscientists has developed a powerful
technique that allows them to look deep inside a person's brain and
read their intentions before they act.
The research breaks controversial new ground in scientists' ability
to probe people's minds and eavesdrop on their thoughts, and raises
serious ethical issues over how brain-reading technology may be used
in the future.

The team used high-resolution brain scans to identify patterns of
activity before translating them into meaningful thoughts, revealing
what a person planned to do in the near future. It is the first time
scientists have succeeded in reading intentions in this way.

"Using the scanner, we could look around the brain for this
information and read out something that from the outside there's no
way you could possibly tell is in there. It's like shining a torch
around, looking for writing on a wall," said John-Dylan Haynes at the
Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in
Germany, who led the study with colleagues at University College
London and Oxford University.
The research builds on a series of recent studies in which brain
imaging has been used to identify tell-tale activity linked to lying,
violent behaviour and racial prejudice.

The latest work reveals the dramatic pace at which neuroscience is
progressing, prompting the researchers to call for an urgent debate
into the ethical issues surrounding future uses for the technology.
If brain-reading can be refined, it could quickly be adopted to
assist interrogations of criminals and terrorists, and even usher in
a "Minority Report" era (as portrayed in the Steven Spielberg science
fiction film of that name), where judgments are handed down before
the law is broken on the strength of an incriminating brain scan.

"These techniques are emerging and we need an ethical debate about
the implications, so that one day we're not surprised and overwhelmed
and caught on the wrong foot by what they can do. These things are
going to come to us in the next few years and we should really be
prepared," Professor Haynes told the Guardian.

The use of brain scanners to judge whether people are likely to
commit crimes is a contentious issue that society should tackle now,
according to Prof Haynes. "We see the danger that this might become
compulsory one day, but we have to be aware that if we prohibit it,
we are also denying people who aren't going to commit any crime the
possibility of proving their innocence."

During the study, the researchers asked volunteers to decide whether
to add or subtract two numbers they were later shown on a screen.

Before the numbers flashed up, they were given a brain scan using a
technique called functional magnetic imaging resonance. The
researchers then used a software that had been designed to spot
subtle differences in brain activity to predict the person's
intentions with 70% accuracy.

The study revealed signatures of activity in a marble-sized part of
the brain called the medial prefrontal cortex that changed when a
person intended to add the numbers or subtract them.

Because brains differ so much, the scientists need a good idea of
what a person's brain activity looks like when they are thinking
something to be able to spot it in a scan, but researchers are
already devising ways of deducing what patterns are associated with
different thoughts.

Barbara Sahakian, a professor of neuro-psychology at Cambridge
University, said the rapid advances in neuroscience had forced
scientists in the field to set up their own neuroethics society late
last year to consider the ramifications of their research.

"Do we want to become a 'Minority Report' society where we're
preventing crimes that might not happen?," she asked. "For some of
these techniques, it's just a matter of time. It is just another new
technology that society has to come to terms with and use for the
good, but we should discuss and debate it now because what we don't
want is for it to leak into use in court willy nilly without people
having thought about the consequences.

"A lot of neuroscientists in the field are very cautious and say we
can't talk about reading individuals' minds, and right now that is
very true, but we're moving ahead so rapidly, it's not going to be
that long before we will be able to tell whether someone's making up
a story, or whether someone intended to do a crime with a certain
degree of certainty."

Professor Colin Blakemore, a neuroscientist and director of the
Medical Research Council, said: "We shouldn't go overboard about the
power of these techniques at the moment, but what you can be
absolutely sure of is that these will continue to roll out and we
will have more and more ability to probe people's intentions, minds,
background thoughts, hopes and emotions.

"Some of that is extremely desirable, because it will help with
diagnosis, education and so on, but we need to be thinking the
ethical issues through. It adds a whole new gloss to personal medical
data and how it might be used."

The technology could also drive advances in brain-controlled
computers and machinery to boost the quality of life for disabled
people. Being able to read thoughts as they arise in a person's mind
could lead to computers that allow people to operate email and the
internet using thought alone, and write with word processors that can
predict which word or sentence you want to type . The technology is
also expected to lead to improvements in thought-controlled
wheelchairs and artificial limbs that respond when a person imagines
moving.

"You can imagine how tedious it is if you want to write a letter by
using a cursor to pick out letters on a screen," said Prof
Haynes. "It would be much better if you thought, 'I want to reply to
this email', or, 'I'm thinking this word', and the computer can read
that and understand what you want to do."

· FAQ: Mind reading

What have the scientists developed?
They have devised a system that analyses brain activity to work out a
person's intentions before they have acted on them. More advanced
versions may be able to read complex thoughts and even pick them up
before the person is conscious of them.

How does it work?
The computer learns unique patterns of brain activity or signatures
that correspond to different thoughts. It then scans the brain to
look for these signatures and predicts what the person is thinking.

How could it be used?
It is expected to drive advances in brain-controlled computers,
leading to artificial limbs and machinery that respond to thoughts.
More advanced versions could be used to help interrogate criminals
and assess prisoners before they are released. Controversially, they
may be able to spot people who plan to commit crimes before they
break the law.

What is next?
The researchers are honing the technique to distinguish between
passing thoughts and genuine intentions.

<http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,2009229,00.html>