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Ever wondered what it would be like to be Charles Xavier, the wheelchair-bound genius professor who mentors the X-Men? Charles, aka Professor X, has mutant powers that enable him to read other people's minds and also control them. Even though Professor X is just a fictional character, investigating this superpower is not just a dream in broad daylight, you know!
Is it possible that humans can read other people's minds?
You may have believed that every human mind and thought is intangible, abstract, so it cannot be predicted. But actually, all mental activity in the brain is communicated via electrical impulses.
Your brain "lives" on the support of a voltage, similar to a computer. When you concentrate on something, this activity triggers the activation of signals in the nerves in the premotor cortex - the area of the brain responsible for planning movement. This group of nerves is activated not only when you perform an action, but also when you see the same action being done by someone else. This group of nerves is called mirror neurons by the researchers. Several subsequent experiments confirmed that mirror neurons also reflect sensations and emotions, not just actions.
Thus, "mirror neurons show that we can actually empathize with other people - feel how he is at that moment," said Marco Iaboni, a neuroscientist from the University of California, Los Angeles School of Medicine, citing Live Science. Even with mirror neurons, we don't have to pretend to be empathetic, because we can actually read the person's mind. When we interact with someone, we do more than just observe other people's behavior. Researchers believe we create internal representations of the person's actions, sensations as well as emotions, within ourselves, as if we were those who moved and felt.
Interestingly, recent research has succeeded in turning the "mind reading" idea that has inspired many science fiction films into reality - though not quite as sophisticated as it may appear on the silver screen.
How do you read other people's minds?
Unfortunately, until now mind reading cannot be done at will like Professor X. You must first be involved in an experiment in the laboratory, as was done by a study published in the journal PLOS ONE in 2014. The research team successfully exchanged (sent and received) messages direct brain waves between two humans thousands of kilometers away: one in India, the other in France - a.k.a. telepathy. The message sent through this mind reading is a simple greeting: "¡Hola!" (Hello!) In Spanish, and "Ciao!" (Hello!) In Italian.
Mind reading in this way is achieved by detecting the brain waves of two people through a combination of electroencephalography (EEG) technology and a special technique called transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). Brain waves can change according to the cognitive processes of the brain that are active at that time. For example, the brain wave pattern during sleep will be different from when we are awake during the day.
In these experiments, EEG and TMS technologies were used as means of facilitating synaptic signaling neuron activity. Synaptic transmission is the communication between brain cells that forms the basis of all brain activity, including motor control, memory, perception, and emotions. EEG works with the sender of the message: this technology uses a helmet-like head device with electrodes to record the brain activity of the sending “¡Hola!” Signal. of participants in India.
After successfully "reading the mind" of the participants, the researchers then changed this brain wave pattern into a 1 (one) digit code which was recorded on a computer and sent via email to the team in France. There, the TMS picks up and converts these signals to the recipient by delivering an electric current to stimulate the recipient's brain region to produce perceptible stimulation. In this case, the stimulation received by the participants in France was in the form of flashes of light (while blindfolded), which could then be translated into the original words: "¡Hola!".
Experiments in the same way were previously carried out in 2013 by researchers from the University of Washington. They induce brain waves from a participant who is asked to imagine pressing a button. Sending this message causes participants in the next room to automatically press a button that has been provided in that room, against their will. However, until now, mind-reading technology can only be effective if both parties are in a conscious state, and know very well when their thoughts are being "read".
So, what would you do if humans could actually read other people's minds?
