Scientists a step closer to ‘reading minds’

A machine to read the mind came a step closer on Thursday, when scientists at University College London released the results of an experiment in which brain scans revealed the location of people moving around a virtual reality environment.

Demis Hassabis, co-author of the study, said it was “a small step towards the idea of mind reading, because just by looking at neural activity we were able to say what someone was thinking”.

The experiment, published in the journal Current Biology, is significant for neuroscience as it shows for the first time that memories are laid down in specific structures or patterns in the hippocampus, a brain region that is crucial for navigation, memory recall and imagining future events. [READ MORE]