TED Talk: Christopher deCharms: Looking Inside the Brain in Real Time

A very interesting, albeit short, TED Talk on the development of a real-time fMRI that will allow us to see how the brain is functioning during various emotional and/or intellectual states. He leaves us with more questions than answers, which might be a good thing.

Interestingly enough, he is investigating Buddhist psychology from the perspective of a neuroscientist (see below).

Neuroscientist and inventor Christopher deCharms demos an amazing new way to use fMRI to show brain activity while it is happening -- emotion, body movement, pain. (In other words, you can literally see how you feel.) The applications for real-time fMRIs start with chronic pain control and range into the realm of science fiction, but this technology is very real.

About Christopher deCharms:

Neuroscientist Christopher deCharms is helping to develop a new kind of MRI that allows doctor and patient to look inside the brain in real time -- to see visual representations of brain processes as they happen. With his company Omneuron, deCharms has developed technology they call rtfMRI, for "real-time functional MRI" -- which is exactly what it sounds like. You move your arm, your brain lights up. You feel pain, your brain lights up.

How could we use the ability to see our brains in action? For a start, to help treat chronic pain with a kind of biofeedback; being able to visualize pain can help patients control it. And longer-term uses boggle the mind. Ours is the first generation, he believes, to be able to train and build our minds as systematically as a weightlifter builds a muscle. What will we do with this?

deCharms is also the author of the book Two Views of Mind, studying Buddhist theories of perception from a neuroscientist's perspective.

Tags: TED Talk, Christopher deCharms, Looking Inside the Brain in Real Time, fMRI, neuroscience, emotions, thoughts, brain, psychology, science, technology, Buddhism