Forget virtual reality headsets: Doctors transport a patient to his past by zapping the brain to make him HALLUCINATE



Patient said he saw scenes from his family's pizzeria while in the hospital



The hallucinations appeared after electrodes activated regions in his brain

Area around hippocampus was found to be involved in the hallucination



The findings may eventually help develop treatments for people who suffer from conditions such as autism or Alzheimer's disease



Scientists have been able to virtually transport a man back in time - simply by stimulating parts of his brain.

A 22-year-old man reported seeing scenes from his family’s pizzeria as well as his local train station, all while sitting in a medical room.

Researchers hope the discovery could help them better understand areas of the brain used to retrieve information on locations.

The black dots represent the probes researchers used to cause a hallucination in their patient. Dr Mégevand at the Feinstein Institute in New York first scanned the volunteer's brain using functional MRI while he looked at images of different objects and scenes. Activity from the implanted electrodes was then recorded as the patient looked at a similar set of pictures

The halluciations appeared after Pierre Mégevand at the Feinstein Institute in New York implanted electrodes into the young man’s brain in search of the origin of his epilepsy.

This involved drilling tiny holes in the skull through which doctors inserted 2 inch-long (5cm) electrodes and guided them to specific points in the brain tissue.

Dr Mégevand first scanned the volunteer's brain using functional MRI while he looked at images of different objects and scenes, according to a report by Helen Thomson in New Scientist.

Activity from the implanted electrodes was then recorded as he looked at a similar set of pictures.

The halluciations appeared after Pierre Mégevand implanted electrodes into the young man's brain in search of the origin of his epilepsy. This involved drilling tiny holes in the skull through which doctors inserted 2 inch-long (5cm) electrodes and guided them to specific points in the brain tissue

SCIENTISTS COME CLOSER TO MIND-READING DEVICES

Science fiction has long speculated what it would be like to peek inside a person's mind and find out what they are thinking. Now scientists are one step closer to such technology after forging a new brain monitoring technique that could lead to the development of 'mind-reading' applications. The breakthrough comes from a Stanford University School of Medicine study that was able to 'eavesdrop' on a person's brain activity as they performed normal functions by utilizing a series of electrodes attached to certain portions of the brain. The process, called 'intracranial recording', was tested on three epilepsy seizure patients who had been admitted to the hospital for pre-surgery observation, according to FoxNews.com. They also found that activity in this brain region spiked several other times throughout the day. By watching back video recordings of the experiments, the research team discovered that whenever a number was mentioned - even just through words like 'many' or 'more than' - the same spikes were seen in the intraperietal sulcus, which was a very unexpected finding.

The team found that an area of the cortex around the hippocampus was activated when the subject looked at images of places.

‘There are these little spots of tissues that seem to care about houses and places more than any other class of object,’ team member Ashesh Mehta at the Feinstein Institute told the New Scientist.

The implanted electrodes were used to stimulate the brain in this area which triggered a series of visual hallucinations.

The young man initially described seeing a familiar railway station and later a part of his home, but no smells or sounds were associated with the scenes.

When stimulation of these brain areas was repeated, the same hallucinations occurred.

And when the researchers stimulated electrodes in a slightly different area, in the inferior temporal gyrus (ITG), the volunteer said that faces suddenly became distorted.

‘Maybe a specific group of neurons encodes a memory of a person wearing an apron, another group encodes an oven or a street, and when you stimulate them altogether it evokes a familiar memory of that place where all those things were,’ said Dr Mehta.

Dr Mehta said the experiments may eventually help people who who suffer from conditions such as autism or Alzheimer's disease.



The research follows a study at Stanford University, which two years ago revealed that electrodes placed in another area of the brain could change a person’s ability to process faces.