World's first mobile brain scanner with a Nokia N900
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World's first mobile brain scanner with a Nokia N900
As human beings we're far more predictable than we like to admit, but even companies like Amazon are reduced to a best guess about what we might like to buy in the future based upon what we've already done in the past. Jacob Larsen says the mobile brain scanner offers a more "intense modeling" giving a glimpse of what has until now been a closed world of thoughts and responses.
It is the glimpse into those reactions that alarms scientists like Jim Fallon, who showed psychopathic tendencies on his own brain scan. Should you be judged on your brain scan, or your behavior? What if you are a convicted pedophile whose brain continues to show responses to images of children, but you never act on those responses?
"There are many ethical issues related to brain imaging in general, and this is a new world," Jacob Larsen admits. "Its not clear what this information will do to a normal person. And we have no idea what the consequences of sharing this data will be. What will happen if we share our brain data on Facebook? What happens if people interpret this data now, or in the future?"
There's no doubt though that, like personal genetic testing, people, rather than doctors, will be able to access and control the most essential information relating to their own clinical make-up for the first time. We'll know what makes us tick, and for most doctors that is a terrifying reality:
"I can't imagine the average person using this information correctly. Even a medical student would get it wrong," says Jim Fallon. "There could be mayhem. When we scanned the brains of serial killers we had to send off the data and work with people to analyze it. Interpreting data is not a trivial task, and there are millions of questions about each scan. It's endless."
In truth it can mean everything, or nothing at all - so I try the device for myself.
Jacob Larsen hands me the headset and tightens the sensors. After some adjustment a 3D image of my brain springs to life on the screen of the Nokia N900. Using my finger I can rotate it and see it change color. When I talk a part of my left frontal lobe turns yellow and throbs mildly. Then I laugh and a splodge of deep purple explodes in the deeper back recesses of my brain. What does this mean? As Jim Fallon predicted, I have no idea.
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Although we remain endlessly fascinated with ourselves, a little self-awareness can be a dangerous thing. Would someone live a different life if they saw a brain scan and interpreted it to mean they suffered from an illness like schizophrenia? There's no doubt that a lightweight mobile brain scanner could have significant medical benefits. An article by Kenneth Jordan in the Journal of Neurophysiology in 1999 claimed that, in an emergency, continuous EEG monitoring is the key to identifying, and locating, brain dysfunction when it is still at a reversible stage. When a person has a stroke that timing could be crucial. Jim Fallon remains dubious, however, that the mobile EEG scanner currently in development can identify deep parts of the brain - or those areas associated with mental illness, or behavior like pedophilia. "It took us $60 million and eight years to standardize hospital FMRI scanners so that the readings they produce are really reliable. That leaves this product as a parlor game." Standardising a scanner for use in, for example, a court room, might be years in the future, but Jacob Larsen points out that the headset could be easily adapted to include more electrodes, answering many of the medical criticisms of the device. In
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addition, the informal nature of conducting a scan could in itself change the way we think and act. The team at DTU have been studying neuro-feedback where users are presented with their brain results at the same time as their actions. No one knows how it works, but studies have shown that smokers who see the effect of the nicotine hit at the same time as they experience it are able to train their brains to reduce the response. Similar work is underway to help children with ADHD.
Now we're talking. A real-time brain scan that enables us retrain our brain really could lead a neuro-revolution, and Jacob Larsen is mindful of the fact that noone knows where that road might take us: "What we do could be used by the military, or it could save lives in a hospital. There are ethical dilemmas, but as scientists we shouldn't let that spoil too much of the fun."
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