“Soon, You May Download New Skills to Your Brain”

It may someday be possible to use brain technology to learn to play the piano, reduce mental stress, or even master kung fu with little or no conscious effort. Lead author and BU neuroscientist Takeo Watanabe says in a statement: “Adult early visual areas are sufficiently plastic to cause visual perceptual learning.” [via]

One of the more interesting finding is pointed out in the same article, that the participants showed improvement in learning the visual task tests “especially when the subjects were unaware of the nature of what they were learning.”  OooOoooOoo.

 From the abstract of the study:

With an online-feedback method that uses decoded functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) signals, we induced activity patterns only in early visual cortex corresponding to an orientation without stimulus presentation or participants’ awareness of what was to be learned. The induced activation caused VPL specific to the orientation. These results suggest that early visual areas are so plastic that mere inductions of activity patterns are sufficient to cause VPL. This technique can induce plasticity in a highly selective manner, potentially leading to powerful training and rehabilitative protocols. [via]

Training is the keyword for me and how this technique could be used with sexual offenders.