> The present work demonstrates that it is now practical for patients to undergo a single MRI scanning session and produce enough data to perform high-quality reconstructions of their visual perception.
> Such image reconstructions from brain activity are expected to be systematically distorted due to factors including mental state, neurological conditions, etc.
> This could potentially enable novel clinical diagnosis and assessment approaches, including applications for improved locked-in (pseudocoma) patient communication (Monti et al., 2010) and brain-computer interfaces if adapted to real-time analysis (Wallace et al., 2022) or non-fMRI neu-roimaging modalities.
> As technology continues to improve, we note it is important that brain data be carefully protected and companies collecting such data be transparent with their use.
Edit: More interestingly, it would be amazing if this could show us someone’s perception rather than what they’re looking at. That would be tremendously useful to therapists.
Or maybe text.
> fMRI is extremely sensitive to movement and requires subjects to comply with the task: decoding is easily resisted by slightly moving one’s head or thinking about unrelated information (Tang et al., 2023)
Aphantasia is the term attributed to the inability to willfully create internal visual objects in the mind that can be perceived consciously. So, that leaves an open unconscious "will" still being able to create them. Studies, and personal experience, shows people considered to have this "condition" called Aphantasia, are able to see hypnogogic images during transition to sleep. And most of us have dreams too.
Drawing a conclusion of that term applied to someone who clearly states they have damage to a certain part of their brain and then correlating that an estimated 1-2% of the population is a bit of an insensitive thing, maybe.
Then again, I saw a lot of this while exploring the topic a few years back, so it's understandable that people who visualize think it's some sort of "problem" instead of a super power (which it is).
