[BojanaL]

Reconstructed brain images as a YouTube video

Visual information is essential for the survival of a lot of different animals. Even the simple unicellular organism such as Euglena has primitive form of “visual tool” that helps animal to adjust its behavior by identifying light (distinguishing the day and night) as an ideal time for photosynthesis. That way Euglena can establish normal circadian rhythm. This rhythm is very important for all animals, but vision can provide so much more than that. Ocular machinery evolved progressively into more complicated organ that provides more colorful, brighter and sharper vision, which helps animals to cope with tricky life situations. Animals are able to detect and escape from predator, find prey, locate ideal mating partner….People use their eyes for the same reasons.

Human eyes are complicated organs. It all starts with a ray of light that falls on the retina. Complex network of nerves transfer impulses to the visual cortex where image will be created. Real image of the outer world will be created if all elements of this route are healthy and functional. That is not the case always. Some people are born blind. Other people lost their sight during life. In both cases, lack of vision usually gets compensated by enhancing remaining senses and most blind people develop excellent hearing or sense of touch. They learn to survive without visual information and most of them live happy life to its maximum. Those that are hoping to regain their vision someday in the future could be closer to fulfilling their dream than they think. Extensive scientific experiments focused on visual apparatus and image creation in the brain in combination with latest technological achievements could offer solution for impaired vision very soon.

Scientist at the University of California, Berkley, conducted an experiment with a goal to investigate brain activity during image creation and to reconstruct the visual information formed in the brain of the subjects. They used Hollywood movie trailers to obtain different images in the brains of participants. Brain imaging technology and computational models were used to determine pattern of brain blood flow in the visual cortex (recorded using fMRI) and neuronal activity in the brain. Sequence by sequence, movie scenes changed and computer established connection between visual patterns in the movie and the brain activity. Tricky part of the experiment was associated with reconstruction of the visual images. Computer could create image only if there is a library of images that could correspond to the one that is seen by the subjects. Computer analyzed 18 million seconds of random YouTube videos to create large collection of clips and images that correspond to the certain types of brain activities. Those videos should contain images that are not the same but similar to the images seen in the experiment. Out of 18 million clips, software picked 100 video clips that contain visual information similar to ones seen in the movie trailers. Final movie shows images that subjects have seen while watching the movies and images offered by the software as their closest match. Since YouTube videos don’t have the same images as those seen in the trailers, two images are similar to the some extent but they are not the same. Since this is the first attempt to create visual information artificially this experiment should be considered as a major success. Although images are blurry, it can be clearly seen that appropriate pattern between brain activity and image creation is succesfully accomplished. So far, just images that were already seen could be reconstructed. Scientists hope that soon they will be able to reconstruct long gone memories, dreams, and other images that are familiar only to a single person (not seen by other subjects). Here is a video clip that is showing creation of images in three different brains while the subjects are watching various trailers:

http://www.youtube.com/embed/KMA23JJ1M1o

Brain activity has always been a great mystery for scientific community. Brain controls and regulates major functions in the human body, including image processing and visual interpretation of the world that surrounds us. In this experiment visual information is decoded for the first time and clear pattern between image creation and brain activity was identified. Hopefully, with new and improved techniques, people that lost their vision due to stroke, neurodegenerative disorder and coma could be able to regain their vision in the near future.