Brain Reading: Mapping, Modeling, and Decoding the Brain Under Naturalistic Conditions

Even simple tasks, such as watching a movie or listening to a story, involve many different parts of the brain. Gallant’s lab has developed computer algorithms that recover detailed information about brain function under naturalistic conditions from fMRI data. He finds that even these simple tasks involve dozens or hundreds of distinct cortical areas, each of which represents a different aspect of the external and internal worlds. These algorithms can be used to decode and reconstruct movies or stories from brain activity measurements. This approach might one day be used to build a general brain-computer interface that can decode covert, inner speech.