Heads up: over-the-counter brain-scanning helmets are coming soon.
This may come as a surprise to some folks, but what people “say” they are thinking and what they are “actually” thinking can sometimes be different things.
That’s why so many of us hold a fascination for the concept of being able to “read minds”.
Charlatans purporting to possess this ability have been with us for centuries, but the phenomenon possibly peaked in the mid-1970s with television mountebank the Amazing Kreskin and the spoon-bending Uri Geller dominating primetime viewing.
But up until now, the only real insight that can be gathered about the goings-on inside the brain is gleaned inside a laboratory or hospital using wildly expensive and sophisticated scanning equipment.
Enter a US-based start-up called Kernel.
According to a report in Physics World the boffins at Kernel have designed a helmet-like device that uses near-infrared light to scan the wearers’ brains. The picture we have below is a study participant sporting the funky headset, which the company calls the Kernel Flow.
The device, Kernel admits, is still a work in progress, but the basics are as follows: It’s an
adjustable headset with 52 modules attached to four plates on each side of the head.
Each plate has a laser surrounded by six hexagonal detectors. Two lasers inside the source emit light at different wavelengths and direct them toward the brain. Using time-domain functional near-infrared spectroscopy (TD-fNIRS), the detectors pick up the reflected light, and photon arrival times are recorded.
The images being recorded by the device are now being studied to evaluate brain activities including emotions, attention span and ketamine side effects.
Some of the challenges of the technology currently include different hair textures and skin types affecting the outcomes, but the company is confident it can have a consumer version of the headset on sale by 2024.
The ultimate goal, according to the PR, is to provide wearers with a relatively cheap and efficient way of improving their health by better understanding what going on inside the grey matter.
And even if the device doesn’t live up to expectation, the Kernel Flow can always double up as the world’s hippest bike helmet.
If you see something that bends your brain, astrally project it to felicity@medicalrepublic.com.au
