The idea that people can interfere with others’ thoughts and implant things in their minds was made famous by the 2010 film ‘Inception’.
But the concept is not completely science fiction, according to a group of researchers at Brown University.
The scientists have discovered a way to implant associations in people’s brains, without the subjects being aware of it happening.
Working with colleagues in Japan, scientists at Brown University have been studying how a functional magnetic resonance machine (FMRI) can ‘induce’ knowledge in someone through their visual cortex by sending signals that change their brain activity pattern.
This process is called Decoded Neurofeedback, or ‘DecNef’.
In a recent breakthrough, the group used a new technique to surreptitiously train a small group of volunteers to associate vertical stripes with the colour red and horizontal stripes with the colour green.
The people taking part thought they were seeing the colour red when looking at black and white stripes, and had no idea this was happening.
The association was induced by specifically targeting two early visual areas of the brain.
Named ‘V1’ and ‘V2’, the areas are the first parts of the cortex to process basic visual information coming from the eyes.
But scientists had not previously seen associative learning happening in these areas.
After three days of training, participants were trained into seeing red when they saw vertical stripes.
‘This is the first clear study that shows that V1 and V2 are capable of creating associative learning,’ said Professor Takeo Watanabe, corresponding author of the paper published in the journal Current Biology.
The idea for neurofeedback technique grew out of research from the 1960s showing that a person could regulate his heart rate or temperature just by thinking about it.
Because our brains regulate temperature and heart rate, Professor Watanabe wanted to see if we could regulate other aspects of brain activity.
‘Participants were not aware of the purpose of the experiment or what kind of activation they learned to induce,’ Professor Watanabe said.
After the experiment, the researchers asked the subjects what they were thinking about when they got high scores.
‘I imagined a zebra,’ said one participant, reported Stat News.
‘I imagined a gymnastics match in which I performed well,’ ‘I imagined a situation where I behaved violently,’ others reported.
The participants were not hallucinating the color red, Professor Watanabe said. Instead their experiences were more similar to synesthesia, a condition in which people perceive coloors when they look at printed numbers and letters.
Associative learning and memory, the idea that ‘this goes with that’, is pervasive in the brain.
But it was a novel finding of basic brain science to show that it can occur in early visual areas, Professor Watanabe said.
Professor Watanabe said he is eager to find out if scientists can use the study’s technique of training subjects with (unwitting) MRI-based feedback to create associations in other parts of the brain for educational or therapeutic reasons.
‘Our brain functions are mostly based on associative processing, so association is extremely important,’ Professor Watanabe said. ‘Now we know that this technology can be applied to induce associative learning.’
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3674896/Is-real-life-Inception-Scientists-trick-people-seeing-colours-not-really-there.html#ixzz4DdGhW07Z
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
And how exactly does this research benefit mankind, Dr. Wanna-be?
Oh, I see….. it could be effective at creating false witnesses to testify against terrorists and other bad people. They could lie like politicians without moving a needle on a polygraph.
Hang this psychotic piece of trash with the rest of the “doctors”. The entire medical and scientific community has sold themselves to the dark side, and all they work on now is surveillance, weaponry, and poisonous medicine. Everyone who owns a lab coat needs to be hanged.
How many years of “research” resulted in vaccines that maim people, and provide absolutely no protection from disease? When was the last time all of this “medical research” actually cured anything?
Nuclear weapons, radioactive waste, genetic modification, killer bees, killer robots, super-viruses, a total surveillance state, chemtrails, poisonous medicine, engineered pandemics, and the list goes on and on.
Nothing but cheap whores working for evil bastards, using their “education” to create pure evil for Satan-worshiping lunatics, and no one seems to know when they’ve done ANYTHING to benefit humanity.
The doctors of death only peddle chemotherapy and deadly “medicine” for profit, while they suppress real cures. Not a shred of morality in medicine anymore. They’ll chop you up and harvest your organs for profit whenever they can get away with it, regardless of how healthy you may be. And the more people you chop up for spare parts, the easier it gets.
How many people have you killed, doctor? What goes around, comes around. Off with their heads.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say that all doctors and scientists are evil, but there is definitely a disturbing lack of historical awareness or ethical concern in many fields of research. The scientific community mirrors our larger society in that far too many of its members are oblivious to the dangers of a too-powerful government.
Many scientists are well-intentioned but simply fail to appreciate how their research could one day be used to harm humanity. For example, I believe that many neuroscientists who are trying to cure Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, etc., fall into this category. They’re focused on the good that may come of their research, but they don’t stop to think of possibilities like, “Could this open the door to new forms of brainwashing?”
Other researchers are well aware of the dangers of their work but rationalize their continued efforts in various ways, e.g., by telling themselves that the moral implications of their new technology will depend on how “society” decides to use it.
Finally, worst of all, we have the douchebags who know (or have no excuse for NOT knowing, due to the nature of their work) perfectly well that they are working in the service of future tyranny, but simply don’t care as long as they get paid.
I would be happy to see everyone in the latter two categories hang. But for now, I think the Liberty Movement needs to fight fire with fire. Amateur scientists, computer hackers, and others with technical education or inclination can develop countermeasures to the technology of tyranny. For example, efforts to build thermal camouflage have been successful and are demonstrated on YouTube. Quite a few people have also successfully experimented with homemade explosives, shaped charges, etc., and posted their results on YouTube.