Mind-reading breakthrough hailed by US scientists

Doc Brown, the crazy inventor from Back to the Future, may not have perfected his mind-reading contraption, but real scientists are still trying. (Universal)

BERKELEY, Calif. – You may idly wish you could hear what others are thinking yet write off telepathy as science fiction. But one day, the ability to read people’s minds may not be a talent reserved for psychics and the X-Men.

A group of neuroscientists at the University of California, Berkeley, reported they may have come up with a scientific way to read people’s minds.

Led by post-doctoral researcher Brian Pasley, the scientists have developed a method for deciphering the electrical signals in a person’s brain as they listen to words or conversation. Upon figuring out these signals, they were then able to use them to recreate the imagined speech of the same person.

The secret to their method lies in the temporal lobe of the brain, which is used in auditory perception. When a person hears a word or phrase being spoken, the activity that occurs in the temporal lobe also occurs when the person imagines that same word or phrase.

“This is a fundamental principle of the brain,” Robert Knight, a senior author for the study and a neuroscientist at UC Berkley, told FoxNews.com.

“The area that performs a cognitive or behavioral function is also activated when you imagine that function. For example, let’s say you raise your right arm. Then if you imagine raising your right arm, the same areas that were active when you move your arm are working when you imagine it.”

For more on this mind-reading breakthrough, see Fox Health.