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A Real-Time Visualization Of Electrical Activity In The Brain Is Here And It's Beautiful

This article is more than 7 years old.

Credit: Neuroscape Lab/YouTube

Is the electrical activity in your brain different when you watch an episode of Game of Thrones on HBO and when you read the same scene in one of the books? A visualization built by the Neuroscape Lab at the University of California, San Francisco  could show you the answer. The visualization is demonstrated in “Glassbrain Flythrough 2015” which was submitted to Science’s Data Stories video contest. The video didn’t win an award, but it’s worth watching simply because it’s beautiful. It's also amazing when you find out what it is you’re looking at.

(You can check out the contest winners at “Scientific Findings Visualized: The Winners Of The AAAS Data Stories Video Contest”)

“Glassbrain Flythrough 2015” is gorgeous but without a voiceover it’s just a lot of pretty brain pictures. The lack of explanation is a shame because what you’re seeing in the video is extraordinary.

The video is depicting electrical activity in the brain. The 3D model of the brain seen in the visualization is derived from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data. Electrical activity in the brain is gathered from EEG (electroencephalograph) data. EEG is a non-invasive technology that registers coordinated electrical activity in large groups of neurons through a web of electrodes that are typically worn in a cap that fits over a person's head.

The golden fibers in the image are myelinated groups of nerve axons called white matter. These axon bundles connect and coordinate communication between different areas of the brain. Signals that pass through the axon bundles are visualized as pulses of light in the video.

The different colors that come and go throughout the visualization track activity in different frequency bands (sometimes called “brainwaves”). The brightness of a color indicates the intensity of the activity in a particular frequency band. The model tracks activity in the theta, beta and alpha frequency bands.

  • Theta, shown in red, is a low frequency band (4 to 7 Hz) that is typically observed in drowsiness or meditation in older children and adults.
  • Beta, shown in green, is a low-to-mid range band (16 to 31 Hz) that is associated with a variety of both mental states and physical activity. For example, beta may be reduced during active movements and increased during anxious thinking.
  • Alpha, shown in blue, is another low frequency band (8 to 15 Hz) that is typically associated with relaxation or closing the eyes.
  • Color mixtures show activity in more than one band. For example, purple shows activity in both the theta and alpha bands.

The visualization seen in the video was made with the Unity3D video game development engine. This is the same game engine that is being used by researchers at the Xerox Research Centre Europe to create virtual scenes that are used to train deep learning networks to solve real-world problems.

The most amazing thing about this model for visualizing electrical activity in the brain is not evident in the video. The model allows you to view the electrical activity in the brain of a person wearing the electrode cap in real time. Moreover, because the visualization is built with the Unity3D engine, you can fly around and through the brain using a gamepad - in real time. Think about that for a minute. If you were fitted with an electrode cap in the Neuroscape Lab, you could read this article while doing a real-time flythrough showing the electrical activity in your brain while you were reading about doing real-time flythroughs of electrical activity in the brain.

Winter is coming and the future looks dark in the Game of Thrones. In neuroscience labs studying the human brain, the future's so bright you gotta wear shades.

 

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