Download Knowledge Directly to Your Brain, Matrix-Style

Scientists from Boston University are developing a “Matrix like” technology that will let us upload/download skills directly into our brain.

Learning a martial art, how to fly a plane or how to speak a new language without even being awake is set to become a reality, say researchers. Scientists at Boston University and ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories in Kyoto, Japan, believe that in the future learning a new skill might involve nothing more than sitting in front of a computer screen and waiting for it to ‘upload’.

They have been studying how a functional magnetic resonance machine (FMRI) can ‘induce’ knowledge in someone through their visual cortex by sending signals that change their brain activity pattern. This process is called Decoded Neurofeedback, or ‘DecNef’. No medication is needed and the subject doesn’t even have to be awake, he or she simply has their brain activity changed to a ‘target’ pattern, which could be anything from that of a star footballer to a master chess player.

Lead author Takeo Watanabe from the University of Boston said: ‘Adult early visual areas are sufficiently plastic to cause visual perceptual learning.’ The researchers knew their technique had worked because the FMRI volunteers all underwent visual skill tests and had their results compared with those of people not given the treatment – and the former had far better scores.


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