BRAIN SCANS KNOW INTENTIONS

Brain researchers are helping to bring about just what the movie "Minority Report" envisioned: the ability to determine if you are about to commit a crime, even before you've realized it yourself! Research in the use of functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to watch brain activity on a real-time basis has advanced to the point that scanning can detect a person's intentions, according to a report of experiments conducted at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Germany and reported in "The Guardian."

In this preliminary research, researchers showed subjects two numbers on a screen. Prior to the appearance of the numbers, the subject was asked to either add the two numbers together, or subtract the smaller from the larger. Just prior to the appearance of the numbers, the brain scan could detect, in a certain brain region, specific activity that allowed the reseearchers to predict which action, adding or subtracting, the subjects would pursue.

The results have caused a debate about the ethics of brain scans. Having developed scanning methods that detect lying versus truth-telling, this research may help detect potential terrorists. Or it could be abused. The researchers are now planning on learning how to tell the difference between an actual intention, which will be acted upon, and a mere passing thought that won't.