Mind-reading neural network decodes brainwaves to reconstruct images watched by a person in real time

By analysing the activity in the brain, the system recreates the images being seen by a person in real time

Russian researchers claim to have developed a mind-reading neural network capable of decoding brainwaves and drawing what an individual is looking at in real time.

The technique, developed by the scientists from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT) and Russian corporation Neurobotics, is non-invasive and collects the information via an electroencephalography (EEG) headset placed on the scalp of an individual.

By analysing the activity in the brain, the system recreates the images being seen by a person in real time.

In the first phase of the study, the researchers placed the EEG headset on the heads of test subjects and asked them to watch 10-second video clips, for a total duration of 20 minutes.

The video fragments belonged to any one of the five categories: waterfalls, abstract shapes, human faces, motor sports, and moving mechanisms.

The researchers found that they were able to tell the category of the video watched by a participant by looking at their EEG data.

In the second phase of the study, three random categories were chosen from the original five categories. The team also developed two neural networks, one of which was taught to create images in three of the tested categories from 'noise' and another to generate comparable noise from EEG data.

To test the combined system of two neural networks, the subjects were shown videos that were not seen earlier. The EEGs of those subjects were recorded and fed to the neural networks. It was observed that the system produced images that could be easily categorised in 90 per cent of the cases.

The scientists believe their new technique could someday be used in post-stroke rehabilitation devices that patients would control through their thoughts.

The detailed findings of the research are reported in bioRxiv.

However, this is not the first study where researchers attempted to read a mind and decode human thoughts.

In June, Chinese scientists unveiled a mind-reading chip that, they claimed, would enable people to control computers with just their thoughts.

In July, Elon Musk-backed Neuralink also unveiled its brain-machine interface technology, which according to Musk, would also be able to read the human mind.