(June 29, 2011) Bringing the real world into the brain
scanner, researchers at The University of Western Ontario from The Centre for
Brain and Mind can now determine the action a person was planning, mere moments
before that action is actually executed.
The findings were published this
week in the prestigious Journal of Neuroscience, in the paper, “Decoding Action
Intentions from Preparatory Brain Activity in Human Parieto-Frontal Networks.”
“This is a considerable step
forward in our understanding of how the human brain plans actions,” says Jason
Gallivan, a Western Neuroscience PhD student, who was the first author on the
paper.
Over the course of the one-year
study, human subjects had their brain activity scanned using functional
magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while they performed one of three hand
movements: grasping the top of an object, grasping the bottom of the object, or
simply reaching out and touching the object. The team found that by using the
signals from many brain regions, they could predict, better than chance, which
of the actions the volunteer was merely intending to do, seconds later.