... neuroscientists unlock shared brain codes.

[Jim__]

A team of neuroscientists at Dartmouth College has shown that different individuals' brains use the same, common neural code to recognize complex visual images.

The paper, "A common, high-dimensional model of the neural representational space in human ventral temporal cortex," is in the October 20, 2011, issue of the journal, Neuron. The lead author of the paper is James Haxby, the Evans Family Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences. Haxby is also the Director of the Cognitive Neuroscience Center at Dartmouth and a professor in the Center for Mind/Brain Sciences at the University of Trento in Italy. Swaroop Guntupalli, a graduate student in Haxby's laboratory, developed the software for the new methods and ran the tests of their validity.

Haxby developed a new method called hyperalignment to create this common code and the parameters that transform an individual's brain activity patterns into the code.

The parameters are a set of numbers that act like a combination that unlocks that individual's brain's code, Haxby said, allowing activity patterns in that person's brain to be decoded – specifying the visual images that evoked those patterns ¬– by comparing them to patterns in other people's brains.

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[Sentath]

1. Awesome

Brain interface here we come (I really think so)

It can prove Architect Myopia (Overkill, but it would probably work)

Design soda cans that make us happy, or thirsty depending on how they're viewed (Silly, but what else is a capitalist to do with it)

[arendt]

2. Cool. How did you find this?

Its not in PubMed or in Google Scholar yet. But you published this yesterdasya.

Are you in the field? In the group?

[Jim__]

3. I did a search for "neuroscience" under google news.

I'm not in the field, but I am interested in it.