Brain Scans Can Read Your Mind—in a Dozen Conflicting Ways
A recent study involving 70 research groups identified sharp limitations in the value of brain imaging (fMRI) in understanding the mindIn the 1990s, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) — imaging the brain in action via blood flow—seemed like a dream come true. Medical and social science researchers who flocked to use it are not going to be happy with a recent study of its limitations: There was little meaningful agreement among seventy research teams from around the world about what their results meant. In an article aptly titled “Seventy Teams of Scientists Analysed the Same Brain Data, and It Went Badly,” a neuroscientist fills us in: The group behind the Nature paper set a simple challenge: they asked teams of volunteers to each take the same set of fMRI scans from 108 people doing a decision-making task, and use them Read More ›