Researchers at the Champalimaud Foundation have discovered that the facial movements of mice are a reflection of their thoughts, paving the way for non-invasive studies of the brain, the institution announced today.
The study authors, whose work is published in the scientific journal Nature Neuroscience, affirm that this discovery serves as proof of concept for the potential to read the mind through video recordings, potentially leading to new investigative and diagnostic tools.
Utilizing Machine Learning techniques, a data analysis method, the research team demonstrated that the facial movements of mice reflect their hidden thoughts, potentially ushering in an “unprecedented understanding of brain function,” while also highlighting the need for safeguards on mental privacy, according to the Champalimaud Foundation (CF).
“Our study shows that videos can be more than recordings of behavior—they can be open windows into brain activity. While this is quite exciting scientifically, it also raises many questions about the need to safeguard our privacy,” noted Alfonso Renart, one of the study authors and a principal investigator at CF.
In practice, the team recorded the facial movements and neuronal activity in the animals’ brains, analyzing these using Machine Learning algorithms.
“The results were surprising,” the researchers acknowledged, considering that “facial movements were as informative as populations of neurons.”
“To our surprise, we found we could obtain as much information about what the mouse was thinking as we could by recording the activity of dozens of neurons,” stated researcher Zachary Mainen.
For the study’s author, having “such easy” access to the hidden content of the mind could give a significant boost to brain research, but it also emphasizes the “need to begin considering protection regulations” for mental privacy.
The findings also indicate that similar facial patterns represented the same strategies in different mice, suggesting that the reflection of certain thought patterns through facial movements may be stereotyped, akin to emotions.
