Christopher deCharms is working on a way to use fMRI scans to
show brain activity -- in real time. Neuroscientist Christopher
deCharms is helping to develop a new kind of MRI that allows
doctor and patient to look inside the brain in real time -- to
see visual representations of brain processes as they happen.
With his company Omneuron, deCharms has developed technology
they call rtfMRI, for "real-time functional MRI" -- which is
exactly what it sounds like. You move your arm, your brain
lights up. You feel pain, your brain lights up. How could we use
the ability to see our brains in action? For a start, to help
treat chronic pain with a kind of biofeedback; being able to
visualize pain can help patients control it. And longer-term
uses boggle the mind. Ours is the first generation, he believes,
to be able to train and build our minds as systematically as a
weightlifter builds a muscle. What will we do with this?
deCharms is also the author of the book Two Views of Mind,
studying Buddhist theories of percepti