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People identifiable by individual brain activity
The brain of each individual person works individually. Therefore, similar to a fingerprint, people can be identified by brain activity. Researchers from the USA have now found this out. The new findings could in the future enable improved therapeutic options for some patients.
New findings in brain research
Brain research has gained many new insights in recent years. For example, neuropathologists at the University Hospital Freiburg im Breisgau recently reported that they were able to determine in a study with mice that a healthy intestinal flora can keep the brain healthy. And scientists at the University of Texas at Austin found that brain activity indicates risk-taking. Certain areas in the brain are therefore more active if more risk-taking decisions are made. By the brain activity even persons can be identified according to recent findings. As the news agency dpa reports, a new US study shows that a person can be identified by means of the activity patterns of the brain - similar to his individual fingerprint.
The individual brain activity can be used for identification. (Image: psdesign1 / fotolia.com) Improvement of therapies of neurological diseases
The researchers around Emily Finn from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, USA, write in the journal Nature Neuroscience: "Here we show that the profile of a human brain network like a fingerprint is both unique and reliable. "One can identify a person with almost perfect precision only by means of his connection matrix from a large group - whether at a certain activity or at rest. In the future, characteristic patterns of activity might be used to improve the education of people or therapies such as psychiatric and neurological disorders such as schizophrenia or epilepsy.
Brain pattern of study participants examined
According to the agency message, the researchers used data from the Human Connectome Project (HCP), which recorded human brain activity via functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The brain patterns were studied by 126 participants who were scanned on two consecutive days for a total of six runs. At the same time subjects received tasks related to memory, motor skills, language or emotions. In addition, they were also scanned repeatedly at rest.
Researchers achieved a very high hit rate
If the researchers knew one of the two hibernate scans, they could use the other to find the participants with a hit rate of 94 percent. The images taken during the assignments also contained individual patterns. Even if the scientists knew only one of these activity patterns of one of the participating men and women, they could identify him by 80 to 90 percent of the images taken in other situations. In the study it could be ruled out that the determined "fingerprint" was due to head movements of the participants in the scanner or a different brain anatomy. Now, however, it has to be shown that a person's activity patterns are not only similar on two consecutive days, but also over weeks, months or even many years. (Ad)