Last month a team of scientists at the University of California Berkeley programmed computers to decode brain waves, transmitting them into words. Another group of scientists at Berkeley five months prior showed their colleagues movie trailers, and then using computers played back in color what people saw.
With these technological advances, the potential for helping paralyzed people “speak”, or understanding what a patient in a coma is thinking could be enormous.
Jack Gallant, the neuroscientist who led the first Berkeley team says that despite the breakthroughs, the current technology for decoding brain activity is still “relatively primitive.” “Eventually, someone will invent a decoding machine you can wear as a hat.” Such technological progress may take another thirty years to so, according to Gallant.
Just imagine, you could watch your dreams on a computer…..Newsweek February 20, 2012 Samar Halarnkar