Digging into the human brain seems daunting and dangerous, but we know that, for all we already know about the human brain, there is likely even more to learn. For instance, what if a map of the brain could help us decode people’s inner thoughts? This very interesting information came to us from the Berkeley News in their article, “Scientists map brain’s thesaurus to help decode inner thoughts.”

Now mind reading may not be on your list of high priorities, but University of California Berkeley scientists have taken a step in that direction by building a “semantic atlas”. This semantic map shows in vivid colors and multiple dimensions how the human brain organizes language and how the brain responds to words that have similar meanings.

Put away your science fiction novels for the moment and contemplate what this means for Alzheimer and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients. Detailed maps showing how the brain organizes different words by their meanings could eventually help give voice to those who cannot speak. The findings were recently published in the journal Nature.

Melody K. Smith

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