Telepathy is not science fiction ...!

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Telepathy ( communicating with our thoughts ) is indeed a dream technology. Whenever I saw those magic shows where the magician lifts a person or things with his mind, I used to think, it would be so cool if those were real and not illusions. But we humans are so intelligent, that we are making everything possible which was once impossible.

Personally, am a big fan of TED. Just watch the demo of this brilliant technology in the TED video below, and you will understand everything you need to know about this brain computer interface technology.

Solving Avatar - The mystery of 'I'

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Who haven't watch James Cameron's Avatar....? A brilliant movie with never before seen sci-fi technologies... Well, the Swiss Researchers are quite hopeful to make some of those flashy technologies, a reality...!

In the movie, the scientists use Na'vi(aliens)-human hybrid bodies called avatars that are operated via mental link by genetically matched humans. There the humans are linked to those bodies in such way that they feel that body as their own. i.e, self-consciousness. You know, that feeling of being in or owning our body is the fundamental human experience. Have you ever wondered where does it originate..? or how or why we feel that way...? That's what researchers are trying to figure out.

By combining techniques from cognitive science with those of Virtual Reality (VR) and brain imaging, Professor Olaf Blanke, a neurologist with the Brain Mind Institute at EPFL and the Department of Neurology at the University of Geneva in Switzerland and his team are zeroing on the first experimental, data-driven approach to understanding self-consciousness.

Now let me make a little bit clear for you about what is its connection to 'Avatar' and what exactly did they do in their experiment.....

The people who volunteered for the experiment, were fitted with an electrode-studded skullcap to monitor brain activity and exposed to different digital, 3D environments through a head-mounted stereoscopic visor or projections on a large screen. They immersed these people into the body of an 'avatar' or virtual human via virtual reality settings.

Then the team, tried to dig out the most fundamental questions with those people such as, "Where am I localized in space" and "What is my body?" by physically touching their real-life volunteers either in or out of sync with the avatar.They even swapped perspectives from first to third person and put their male subjects inside female avatars, at the same time measuring each of their brain activities.

Why they are doing it...?? You may not be aware but there are cases in neurological patients reporting out-of-body experiences. And the data show marked changes in the response of the brain's temporo-parietal and frontal regions -- the parts of the brain responsible for integrating touch and vision into a coherent perception.The researchers are are trying to compare the experimental results with those case studies.

But finding the basic brain response to VR is just beginning.In the next step, the researchers are going to induce stronger illusions of the self by altering signals of balance and limb position -- two very powerful bodily cues.Once subjects can no longer distinguish between the real and the virtual self, cognitive science and brain imaging may be able to answer all the questions about self-consciousness and there by solving the mystery of 'I'.

Cracking this mystery, could.....

• lead to advances in the fields of touch and balance perception
• great advancements in the fields of robotics and virtual reality.
• neuro-rehabilitation and pain treatments.
• contribute to the understanding of neurological and psychiatric disease.

Lets hope the future it make the future better.

A journey into the world of dreams

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"Inception" .......... wait, have started dreaming about the film..??..:) This is one movie, which left people dreaming about dreams. It made many of us fascinated in dreams...... ya ya.. I know its not a movie review blog..:p Am here to show you a sneak peak into the world of dreams.......!!

So.. to start with ... What is dream...??
To tell you a definition, its very simple...Dream is succession of images, memories, sounds or emotions that mind experience when we are asleep.

Why do we dream....? This one is a difficult one....! Because there is no unique answer or explanation for this question..! I would like to introduce you to some of the major theories which explain the above question

1. Freud's theory :

This theory is one of the strongest till now.... According to the theory,

• dreams depend on your ongoing desires and previous day's activities.
• Wishes that were there in our heart even since childhood may get transformed into a dream. In fact he believed every dream is somehow related to one's childhood.
• The interesting thing about this theory is that ...it says, nothing is made up during the dream . Its all predefined..! I mean these are all results of biological reactions, your hidden or unfulfilled desires, personal experiences etc...!
• So.. To sum up, you dream when a wish of yours which is, will or can not be fulfilled gets deep into your mind instead of being discarded.

2. Jung's Theory :

Jung kind of disagrees with Freud and presents his own new theory on dreams.....

• Freud believed we can't interpret dreams.... but Jung said we can...!!
• Jung gave a method to interpret them using the series of correlation.
• Don't know what it is...?? Read the next points.....
• Series correlation is a process of processing and analyzing the dream over the time.
• Take all your related dreams and images from the same. Try to combine all these images to create a new bigger dream. Now try to think and relate it to any of your real life situations. Thus from this info a physical action that could be can be extracted.

3. Cayce's Theory :

Its a kind of really twisted theory...:)

• Cayce said dreams are your bodies way of building a better you..! i.e, mentally, physically a bettor person.
• Its a way of tuning you, to yours maximum potential. It can help solve any of your problems...!..." Really..?? How..? " ....following points explain it....
• By interpreting dreams..... But to interpret them you have to know your mind inside out...! You have to study yourself and and become an expert in yourself...!
• After that you will be able to know what your dreams mean and will help you in building a new you..... may be a version 2.0...:)

4. Evan's Theory :

• During our REM sleep.... brain doesn't sleep and it will sort and re-organize the whole our memories.
• It will bring out everything from deep inside your memory an d scan them and reorganize them.
• So according to this theory, dream is nothing but a moment, those memories and information being scanned.
• Actually FYI, brain re-organizing our memories is recently proved scientifically..!! See Here
  

There are many more theories than you can count.... since its a sneak peak, I have provided only major four. Please be free to explore the internet...:)

Below, I have collected some amazing or interesting facts regarding dreams.....

1. We forget 90% of the dreams.
2. Everybody dreams.
   
3. In our lifetime, we may spend about 6 years dreaming...!!
4. Blind people dream too.
5. If you are snoring, you can not be dreaming.
6. Its proven that our brain waves are more active when we are dreaming than when we are awake.
7. We only dream of what we know.
8. Not everybody dreams in colour.
9. Dreams are not about what they are about.
10. You are paralyzed when you are sleeping.
11. External stimuli affect your dream.

Again these very little what I collected...:) Even I am knew to 'Dream' even if am dreaming every night...:) So please be free to share your knowledge ....:)

What does brain do when you are asleep...???

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Jessica D. Payne of the University of Notre Dame and Elizabeth A. Kensinger of Boston College have studied the brain functioning when the person is sleeping and what they came up with is pretty interesting.

First let me tell you a fun fact..... as humans, we spend 1/3rd of our lives asleep...!

Now if you are thinking, "oh my god...! am I wasting so much of my precious time sleeping..??!!"...then you are wrong...! If we need that much sleep, then it has to have some reason right..? That's what Payne and Elizabeth thought and they came to know the truth behind this.

So according to their study... sleep makes our memories stronger...!! This may be known to many... like as my mom used to say.."you need a good sleep before the exam so that you can remember whatever you have studied easily.." But even if it is a fact there was no proof..! and that's what I used to ask my mom..:) But it has now...

• When we sleep, brain doesn't sleep.
• It make sour memories stronger.
• It recognizes, organizes and restructures our whole memory.
• And this is what makes people come up with new ideas and it make you see things in a different angle.
• The study uncovered a fact that the person tends to stick to the most emotional part of the memory. For example, if someone is shown a scene with an emotional object, such as a wrecked car, in the foreground, they're more likely to remember the emotional object than, say, the palm trees in the background—particularly if they're tested after a night of sleep.
• They have measred the brain activity during sleep and discovered that regions of the brain involved with emotion and memory consolidation are active.

Payne says "I give myself an eight-hour sleep opportunity every night. I never used to do that—until I started seeing my data," also "We can get away with less sleep, but it has a profound effect on our cognitive abilities" she adds.

So sleep well and think well....:)

Turning thoughts into words - extracting info from brain is now possible..!

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Brian interface: The micro electrodes
shown here were used to record brain
signals in order to decode ten words
from a patient’s thoughts.
Credit: Spencer Kellis, University of Utah





You may be knowing about the locked-in syndrome (if you aren't.. click HERE ). The major problem with these patients is communication. Usually they communicate by blinking their eye but its not an easy job to convert the blinking into words.

So scientists have been trying to figure out a new way to enable communication with these locked-in patients ( there is another way also...."sniffing...!!" but how..? click me ). The scientists from Utah have come up with an amazing way to determine which of 10 distinct words a person is thinking by recording the electrical activity from the surface of the brain...!!

How do they do it...??!!

• An array of nonpenetrating electodes will be attatched to the language centers of the brain (refer the image above )
• the method also consists of special algorithms to recognize specific brain signals picked up by these electrodes.
• till now they have been able to identify the words "yes," "no," "hot, "cold," "thirsty," "hungry," "hello," "goodbye," "more," and "less" with an accuracy of 48 percent.
• This appoach is known as electrocorticography ( ECoG ).

There are some more methods to do this other than ECoG. Such as...

• functional magnetic resonance imaging ( fMRI ) is used to decode words from brain signals. so why ECoG...?? Because it provides a more practical and portable approach to do the same work.
  
• electroencephalography ( EEG ). Its a little more non invasive than ECoG. But still ECoG is preferred. Why..?? Because in EEG, many of the signals are filtered out by the skull.
  

The only major drawback to be overcome in this procedure is the accuracy. "I don't think even 60 percent or 70 percent accuracy is going to work for patients who cannot communicate in any other way and where there is no other margin for verification," says Leuthardt, one of the scientista behind this research.

Lets hope this procedure is developed enough to establish a sophisticated communication...:)

The brain controlled iPhone app is here...!!!

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Its always fun to play with our brain...!! Just think how would it feel if we were able to control everything just by concentrating on it...?? like moving something or levitating...!!??!! Well that's not not imaginary now because there's an iPhone app and accessory that can help....!! PLX Devices, Inc. have developed Xwave, headgear that plugs into your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad and -- after a bit of training -- lets you control the device with your mind alone.

It uses a technology called Neurosky. ( Get more info about neuosky .. HERE ) There are many apps releasing next month with the above mentioned technology which will include...

• music controller
• a meditation timer
• a game
• a training app

Well.. if your imagination caught something better than these they will let you t write your own apps with the device's SDK..!!

According to PLX Devices, "The XWave allows you to harness the power of your mind in a new and revolutionary way. By safely detecting your brain's rhythm through a small metal contact gently placed on the skin of your forehead, XWave gives you a window into your mind. Backed by medical science and patents, the XWave senses your attention and meditation levels. You will be able to control and float objects in video games by simply thinking about it, or train your mind to focus and relax on command."

I know everybody will wish to have such a device... well if you have got an iPhone and $99, you can order it HERE