Machines Like Us

Carnegie Mellon University has taken an important step in mapping thought patterns in the human brain, and the research has produced an amazing insight: Human brains are similarly organized.

Based on how one person thinks about a hammer, a computer can identify when another person also is thinking about a hammer. It also can differentiate between items in the same category of tools, be it a hammer or screwdriver.

Based on the latest findings published in PLoS One -- the publication of the Public Library of Science -- Carnegie Mellon technology eventually could be advanced to produce a map of cognitive activity and better understand brain disorders, including autism.

"It's extremely exciting," said Marcel Just, a Carnegie Mellon neuroscientist who participated in the study. "We didn't know how ideas are represented in the brain. This is one of the first ways to look at that."

Previously, researchers were only able to discern differences in broad categories, such as tools vs. buildings.

Read full story in Pittsburgh Post Gazette.

Read Carnegie Mellon paper here.