Christopher deCharms: Looking inside the brain in real time

[nassah2010]

how soon will we be seeing this technology?

[Coffeevaccine]

How do I sign up as a research subject? Need help in controlling some animal urges;)

[Xenophanessmith]

he has 666 videos! BE AFRAID!

[Cutflood]

Please let me do this!

[bubach85]

This is BS. I mean, we already have the power to change our ways of thought. A real time image of my brain lighting up isn't helping more then pills or a shrink. All we have to do is make a decision and act on it.

I thought TED was better then this. It's not worth spreading, and it's not even a new idea.

[daveadler]

wow you are full of stupid

[03Kabbotta11]

You are a silly person.

[thebeholder23]

@bubach85 Naive

[bubach85]

@thebeholder23 No I think you are. What good is images of our brain in action to normal people? Come on, it's not like we can spend that much time in a giant god damn magnetfield anyway. He starts the talk as if it was now possible to literally program our minds to do anything - shut down areas that light up in pain for example. But no, all we can do is observe what has been possible through normal MRI for a long time. Not very exciting at all. Yawn..

[thebeholder23]

@bubach85 Well... another post said that this is biofeedback, he is right, but errs saying that has little of interest or use, bc it has been proven effective for many things (read journals). Biofeedback rivals pills, with no side-effects, and with a real sense of selfcontrol, once you learn to control it, you can still do it without the machine. "All we have to do is make a decision and act on it"... that is undoubtly naive. I recommend reading good psych books, not the pop ones.

[nahhboss]

@bubach85 No he does not— that's how you interpreted his talk. How I interpreted it, is that deCharms hints ideas of how we can interpret and glimpse into our brain activity. This is great, specifically because it opens gateway to understand ourselves and our emotions, thoughts, philosophies, physical phenomenons, etc. Whether or not this is effective for Medical Treatment is another story, but as far as progress goes this is just amazing.

[scienceblog1]

Not sure what you guys are getting so excited about. Biofeedback (which is what this is) has been around for decades and has produced very little of interest or use.

This guy should give another talk when he can show that this method does something useful or interesting. I think we might be in for a long wait!

[cronicle10]

That's genius!!! The next step is memory travelling.

[RandallSF3]

CDC, Just tell me when to come down, jump into the scanner, and learn to achieve inner peace and harmony! That's what I want to learn how to do. RSB.

[Aprilshowersss]

Clifford Stoll gets 18 minutes to badger on about nothing and this guy gets3 minutes for this fascinating topic???

[nemesisnick66]

its cause his hair isnt crazy and grey enough

[daveadler]

my thoughts exactly. The best TED talks are about 2 minutes long, why didn't he have his fair 18?

[C64Rulez]

so when is the USB plugged PC version coming out?

[Jdenicola92]

Okay, I think this is really really cool. I love that we have technology that allows us to control our pain and other emotions by looking at our brains. I really wanted to do this with my psychology class.

[e1r2i3c4j5]

I think this is was pretty interesting, that the fact that you can learn to control your brain. I don't really like it in a way to. This is because something could happen when you are trying to change the brain, it could ruin your life. If it were me, I would't want to do it, I would rather go through therapy or try to learn to change my own way.

[stairraytoheaven2000]

this is amazing. I'm currently a physical therapy student and I can see this as being a very useful tool in treating neuro patients. It's almost like bio feedback for the brain. I already see so many possibilities for this kind of technology and it's very exciting! where can I find more information on this?

[SpunkySkunk347]

Does anyone know where fMRIs are done where the patient can view the result in real-time?

[SpunkySkunk347]

Think of the amazing things this technology could be put to use for! You could become self-aware of your own brain functioning! You could in theory, train/exercise your cognition and perhaps even enhance the amount of control you have over your emotions and thoughts!

[nicolecute169]

that can be done anyway now with a bit of awarness. this is a great tool and will be useful for emotional control. Don't need to wait for this to come out to control our emotions. We can now train our neural pathways and chemical production with a bit of concentrated effort and the process of anchoring. like pavlovs dogs with the tuning forks. It is all very simple for those who want to do it. Just avoid the drugs as they create a chemical dependance and limit ourown productionof those chemicals

[SpunkySkunk347]

it seems that having too much awareness just results in neurosis and obsessive thinking

[SaysWh0]

you sound like tony robbins =]

[SpunkySkunk347]

it could be used to treat anger/aggression, cognitive distortions, obsessive compulsive disorder, panic disorder (although for anxiety-related disorders, self-awareness such as this might actually exacerbate anxiety), stress-reduction, treating mental intelligence deficiency, pain treatment, meditation, post traumatic stress disorder, attention deficit disorder, tourette's syndrome, etc

[SpunkySkunk347]

Think of all the things it could be used for: Treatment of brain injury, treatment of autism, it could be used in psychotherapy/psychiatry to aid the psychologist/psychiatrist, it could be sold commercially as a cognitive enhancer,

[ElPopularVale]

Next step is to make a virtual model of your brain so they can simulate your personality in a virtual computer genarated world and see how you would react to a certain scenario.

[papatoony]

Where do I sign up!?

[nyclear]

uh, he didn't mention that many meditation masters who have complete control over this stuff and have already illustrated it in the lab.......

[uglbolly]

i'd like to see a source confirming this

[ElPopularVale]

source is Bullshipedia

[mindstormsabrewin]

Could sending powerful electromagnetic impulses directly into the brain cause things to occur that normally wouldn't? Negative things? What are the long term effects of scanning? I think as a culture we are too quick to jump at the latest technology without first testing it completely for safety and effectiveness. What about false readings? What's the margin for error? Somehow I feel that this was an uncritical commercial for the method.

[Tatarize]

It's MRI, it's simply very strong magnetic fields setup in order to cause the water molecules to kind of twitch and respond to certain radio waves. We'd know at this point if magnets were not safe.

[ndjarnag]

They can now predict words which someone is thinking of, simplying by analyzing the fMRI images.

Science May 30th, 2008 p. 1191

[alfarnir]

4 min on this! Better than nothing, Thank you :)

[nartkan]

Interesting that, all those people watching this clever guy, acting very stupid holding their arms and show their biceps. Wondering if there was an autonomy at the venue telling all those people to 'do what speaker say'. Thanks to youtube, those talks do not be heard only by those.

[giggletronics]

not very many people actually flexed...

[die4uyes]

If you ask me this seems like "supernatural powers" of healing, mind reading, telepathy and

maybe even telekinesis. Science and metaphysics will become one soon.

[bearshave]

wait wait, why wait for 'real' telepathy and telekinesis to occur before wondering how to trigger it. you know? since there is no scientific evidence for it, its most unlikely that it exists

[Nagrobek78]

why was this vid so short? :(

[ludachriska]

How much time do I have to spend in an MRI machine to practice? Because I can think of about a million different places I'd rather be.

[Cocheese0]

Haha I know what you mean. I spent 2 hours in one once for a psychological experiment. It seemed like days.

[surGeonGG]

bring a magazine :)

[anthonyo99]

ʇsɐɟʞɐǝɹq ɹoɟ uıɐɹq ɹnoʎ ʇɐǝ llıʍ ı

[spacedemonebu]

i understand seeing the areas of the brain light up to correspond with what you are doing/thinking/feeling, but i want to know more about the "control". he said that only you will be able to control it, does that mean that you can develop a kind of "neuro-feedback" (as opposed to biofeedback) and gain control of your brain by studying how and when your brain lights up?

if you're interested, check out the MRI music video on my channel!

[SprawlX]

Excellent. Please sir, may I have some more?

[ladymaggic]

Yes..it is too short. I did enjoy this and want more...

Thank you

Excellent lecture and interesting to listen to as well.

[ddball1]

I can see my brain. It says I feel guilty, but I actually feel pleasure :grin:

[sacapiloa]

jesus, why is this, one of the most interesting talks, one of the shortest?!

[nadiaTeeze]

yes this was way too short... did you see the one about phantom limb syndrome??? It is excellent. TED rocks!

[ImaCreativeCreature]

I bet military etc already use that. All the technology is being presented to us - government and military had for 15 years. They will use it against you. Owe yeah - only you can do that to yourself. Well, maybe not your friend can but most def the police. And all this will be in the name of 'protection' against the boogy man! And if you say against - you might find out that you're the boogy man.

[livebythecuz]

my brain is alive! wtf?!

[mikezephyr]

wtf!!! this shit is insane, more more!

[mikeyo1234]

So just biofeedback then?

[thenoblefool]

Mind control!

[KasparHauser4]

No chance! The Catholic church will ban it and work behind the scenes to pass laws against it.

[tetranoob]

this MRI makes teh EEG look like an ECG! , LOL jk

[muchachaverdeygris]

i agree this was way too short

[Gplex]

We can finally learn to fully control our own brain!

[ooglebydoogleby]

this is a double edged sword but the insights it will provide into brain functioning are awesome. think 40% reduction in pain in threshold clinical triles of this technollogy. then think ten years down the line. think tv tennis then think play station. its mind bogling.

[misjudgeme]

This guy didn't even get four minutes. What the hell, TED?

[thoughtwaretv]

Brain Machine Interfaces FTW!

[riversonthemoon]

Amazing!!!

Where can I get one?

Could bring jerking off to a whole new level!!

[celshader]

Cool. If I were lazy I could just put a needle into my head at the right location to get the same sensation as jerking.

I could leave it there all day.

[riversonthemoon]

Sweeeeet.

Might make you talk funny and make inappropriate moaning noises, and you might lose your job and social life, but would be well worth it.

:)

[perkytots]

wow..

[ivanisavich]

<3 Ted, and this is no exception. So darned cool!

[EddyBergman]

This could be an awesome development in the treatment of drug addiction. And so many other things.