Your brainpower

Imagine using power of your mind to play a game except that you don't have to use anything else.

Imagine using the power of your mind to play a game except for the fact that you don't have to use anything else. Sounds unbeleivable? Except for the fact that neuroscientists at Maastricht University in the Netherlands have created such a computer game.

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According to Nature, the game is based on table tennis that people can play using nothing more than the power of their minds. Each 'brain pong' player lies in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine

After a short period of training, the players are able to make their ping-pong bat move up and down the screen by concentrating on specific thoughts. Sophisticated data analysis software makes the system responsive enough for two players to compete in real time.

According to lead researcher Rainer Goebel, "It's exciting that for the first time we have two subjects whose brains are interacting like this."

Functional MRI works by picking up tiny magnetic signals from oxygen bound to iron dissolved in the bloodstream. As brain activity increases in a particular area, the blood flow increases, bringing more oxygen with it and increasing the signal strength.

The technique can measure specific areas of the brain with millimetric accuracy, and most subjects proved adept at switching thoughts 'on' and 'off' after just three 45-minute training sessions. Using only brain signals, the best players can successfully return four out of five balls.

Goebel and his colleagues hope that the new technology could help paraplegic people to train the activity of a localized area of their brains, generating signals that could steer a wheelchair or work a communication device.

It might even help people with mental disorders such as depression or schizophrenia, which are caused by excessive activity in parts of the brain.

If patients were able to visualize the activity of troublesome brain areas, Goebel believes they could learn to steer their brains away from the patterns of activity that cause their symptoms.