Nauka czytania w myślach. Co neuroobrazowanie może powiedzieć o naszych umysłach?

by Russell A. Poldrack, Mateusz Hohol (Translator)

Czy można odczytać myśli, skanując mózg? Co neuroobrazowanie mówi o podejmowaniu decyzji, przestępstwach czy chorobach psychicznych? Czy powinniśmy się obawiać, że specjaliści od marketingu będą wykorzystywać obrazy mózgu, aby efektywniej sprzedawać nam swoje towary?

Russell A. Poldrack, jeden z wiodących neuronaukowców poznawczych, przygląda się początkom technik neuroobrazowania, ich rozwojowi oraz najnowszym odkryciom naukowym, które nie byłyby możliwe bez skanerów mózgu. Opowiada o pionierach neuronauki oraz przełomowych wynalazkach umożliwiających badanie mózgu, by wreszcie dotrzeć do obecnie najczęściej stosowanej metody, jaką jest funkcjonalne obrazowanie rezonansem magnetycznym (fMRI).

Wprowadza czytelnika w tajniki procesu przeprowadzania badań i analizy danych neuroobrazowych. W rzetelny i przystępny sposób ukazuje zarówno potęgę fMRI, jak i poważne ograniczenia tej techniki. Wybiega także w przyszłość, nakreślając perspektywy stosowania neuroobrazowania w takich dziedzinach, jak marketing, polityka, prawo czy psychiatria.

Genres: Science, Neuroscience, Psychology, Nonfiction, Mental Health

288 pages, Hardcover

First published October 16, 2018

Reviews

[Benji · Rating 3 out of 5]

Never encountered such enthusiasm about cross validation in print. As if he just discovered the holy grail of statistics ((:

Computational psychiatry looks like one of the most promising and interesting fields within current science. Patients with mental disorders deserve better.

[Jackie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A mostly lively introduction to fMRI technology, which may not sound lively to you unless you just LOVE brains (no, not like a zombie), or you teach neuropsychology and you have found plenty of explanations that put students to sleep. One lovable thing about this author, a Stanford University professor, is that he scanned his own brain 104 times over an 18 month period, also collecting blood samples, to study how his brain functioning changed from day to night and from day to day and over a longer period, and he also released that data for others to study. Now that's commitment to science. We are learning more and more about the relationship of brain physiology to who we are as humans, largely due to advances in the technology of brain imaging. It's fascinating to me.

[Adam Osth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gives an interesting overview on fMRI methods and what questions it can and can't answer. A lot of this was review for me from my graduate school fMRI class and I would imagine most researchers up on some issues in cognitive neuroscience won't be learning a lot here. At the same time, this likely won't be a very interesting read for those who don't do research for a living and Poldrack's writing isn't quite up to the kind of accessible level of science journalism that would make it an interesting read for your mom or dad.

[Edgar Guevara · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book about neuroimaging, decision making and decoding. Mainly focused on fMRI this book reads at a swift pace if you are into medical imaging, perhaps not so much for the lay reader.
Although it focuses almost completely on fMRI, I do not think this is a weakness, but rather a choice of the author to write about what he knows best. The basics of some other modalities, such as EEG, MEG and fNIRS are outlined, albeit not much discussed.
One strong point is the impartiality towards fMRI, in spite of basing his whole career on this technique, Dr. Poldrack is very aware of the limitations, as well of the advantages of this "mind-reading" method.
The only drawback I find is that the index is really lacking many terms and important names in the field. If you do not take notes, it will be difficult to find that page that talks about the ventral striatum and decision making.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Through neuroimaging, we can decode neuronal activities and read minds with relatively good precision (e.g., what one is visualizing). How is it possible? Here are some features noted in the book.
The firing of neurons is relatively localized across the brain.
Brains are organized in a relatively similar way across individuals.
The firing of neurons results in changes in blood flow that happen in a localized fashion.

However, here is a catch. The scope of prediction is not limitless, and such predictions are highly individualized and temporal. We have limited technology, albeit we are making improvements.

We all have different brains. The structure of the brain includes the "software," and the brain changes through experience. We have different brains as much as we have diverse experience. Not only that, brains change over time with the new experience.

The brain is a complex system where there is no simple one-to-one mapping between psychological states and activity in specific brain areas. Neurons in certain regions would fire due to many reasons.

Neuroimaging measures neuronal activities with low resolution and measurement errors in relation to time (temporal delay) and space (spatial resolution). Many variables (e.g., holding breath) cannot be controlled, and they cause noise in the measurements.
The resolution, although very low compared to neuron fibers or speed of action potentials, results in big data, which contributes to the statistical challenges.

"If thinking is just a biological function that we can visualize with MRI, then what becomes of the mystery of human consciousness?" This is a great question to ask, but we do not need to worry. We will probably know more about our brain and us going forward, but I believe the awe and wonder of our consciousness will remain.

[Bharath Talluri · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice introduction into neuroimaging, the history associated with this technique, and the potential it has to offer neuroscientists. Ideal for naive readers, who I presume are the target audience, but has little to offer if you are already a neuroscientist.

[Neil H · Rating 4 out of 5]

Writing from diverse sources, demystifying and clarifying the confirmation bias scientists themselves may be prone to. Russel P write with a intimacy that avoids the dry and all so often cited popular narratives. Using his own fMRI experiments (on himself nonetheless)he has made a clear case readers need to acquaint ourselves with and that is to be clear headed about the fallacies of falsely attributing causal effects with determinate outcomes. We can takes steps to understand the mind and/or the brain. But each step advanced reveals more questions.

[Adam Calhoun · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not quite sure who this book was written for, because it occupies a weird niche: too technical for a lay reader but not quite novel enough for an expert. Still, it provides a lot of history and context that even a neuroscientist would not know. For instance, did you know that the first 'brain imaging' used mechanical implements in the 1880s?? Worth going through if you are a neuroscientist, might be a bit much if you are not.

[Elliot Ludvig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good, clear introduction to the science. Very up-to-date with current issues, such as the replication crisis, open science, and machine learning methods. Didn't dwell on minutiae, unlike many neuro books--was good at staying at the abstract level. Too much of the "great man" (or woman) take on the science, where each new development was attributed to one (or a small group) of individuals, instead of the large-scale collaborative efforts they actually are.

[Betsy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book does address the subtitle "What neuroimaging can and cannot reveal about our thoughts". However, the tone was a bit to chatty for my taste. It wasn't so much a survey of current research as lists of names of researches and discussions of the flaws in scientific analysis and short on the actual science. A little too Ted Talk for me.

[Jerome Han · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice overview of neuroimaging methods and their implications. Also quite a lot of focus on how to draw appropriate conclusions from experiment statistics. Roughly the same content that you might get in a later year undergrad psych course. Was occasionally left wanting for a bit more depth, eg. would have liked a bit more detail on how fMRI machines actually work.

[Alicia · Rating 5 out of 5]

So fun!!!

[Konrad Klimczak · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mocno techniczna, trochę się męczyłem

[Savannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

Really interesting book gave me a lot of insights into fmri

[Caroline Hirko · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great short non-fiction piece looking at the history and current practice using fMRI's. Interesting study: in 2012 during his tenure here at UT Austin he took multiple fMRI scannings of himself over the course of a year to see how the brain changes over time. It's only been replicated a handful of times, but it is interesting to hear about analyzing the vast differences in a brain from day to day rather than solely using the traditional analysis between subjects from one scan or comparing groups of 'healthy' vs 'unhealthy' brains. Lots of other great studies and information in here that de-bunk some of the fMRI myths and where the technology really is at.