Mind reading “a step closer to reality.”

BBC, 13 March 2009

Wellcome Trust Center for Neuroimaging at University College London told reporters: Mind reading comes a step closer as scientists map people’s brain.

The hippocampus is widely known to be integral to memory, but researchers say they now see how images are stored and recalled in the part of the brain. Neurons in the hippocampus, also known as “place cells”, activate when we move around to tell us where we are.

Using a computer keypad, four young male volunteers navigated virtual reality rooms, choosing to “stand” in one of four locations marked by a rug. The British scientists were able to tell where an individual had been “standing” inside a virtual reality room from records of the volunteers’ brain activity. Their heads had been placed in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner, allowing their brain activity to be monitored. This piece of equipment highlights brain regions as they become active. Focusing on the hippocampus, the small area of the brain vital to navigation, memory recall and imagining future events, the scientists measured blood flow related to neural activity.

“We asked we could see any interesting patterns in the neural activity that could tell us what participants were thinking, in this case where they were.”, said Professor Eleanor Maguire.

Are people lying?

Surprisingly, just by looking at the brain data the scientists could predict exactly where the volunteers were in the virtual reality environment.

“By looking at activity over tens of thousands of neurons, we can see that there must be a functional structure – a pattern – to how these memories are encoded.”, said Professor Maguire.

But the researchers stressed that the prospect of genuinely reading someone’s most intimate thoughts- or working out if they were lying- was still a long way off. It is brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s which could stand to benefit from such research.”

Understanding how we learn and store memories could aid our understanding of conditions in which memory is compromised and potentially help patients in the rehabilitation process,” said Professor Maguire.

Choosing the Right Words

The most crucial factor in flirting is body language. What you actually say counts only 7% in your success or failure. But your love boat will never float if you don’t first break the ice with an incisive chat-up line. Guides to dating and internet sites provide countless conversation-openers for introducing yourself to attractive strangers.

Unfortunately, most are terrible.

Success with a line like, “That dress looks good on you, but it would look better on my bedroom floor”, takes devastating good looks, expensive designer clothes or fame. The best that most men can expect from this is a slap on the cheek.

To identify the best ice-breakers, a British company surveyed a thousand young adults. The successful lines include “You don’t know me but I dreamt about you last night”, “Did it hurt when you fell from heaven?” and “Do you believe in love at first sight or shall I walk past you again?”.

But the line guaranteed to bring the best results of all, at least with British women, is “Can I buy you a drink?”. The makers of the survey concluded that the best way to find love is to be simple and direct. But if you are ready to face humiliating public rejection here are some of the more ambitious approaches, “ I’ve lost my phone number, can I have yours?” ; “When they made the alphabet they should have put U and I together.”; “Was your father a thief, because he stole the stars and put them in your eyes?”; “There must be something wrong with my eyes, I can’t take them off you”; “Hi, I need your help! My mom says that if I don’t get a date by tomorrow, she’s putting me up for adoption.”

GLOSSARY:

chat-up line: frase para iniciar uma conversa.

conversation-openers: cantadas