Question about brain waves.?

Question

I was wondering if brain waves were like sound waves. If so could someone record there voice for like a door lock then put on a brain wave amplifier and be able to unlock the door with his/her mind by just saying what the recorded words. Because I would like to try it but do not have the funds. What do you answerers think?

Answer 1

Brain waves ARE electrical impulses picked up by our sensors.

The problem is that our thoughts and memory is an electrical and chemical process that involves the use of neurotransmitters that we don't quite understand yet. We are working on decoding the brain's signals and are getting close but currently bionics are impossible you would have to re-teach the person each and every movement and they would have to make the brain synapses connections just like babies do.

Your brain waves are only part of what you are thinking and they are not necessarily unique. We know that if a person is lying that their brain will use more oxygen to create the lie; thus creating the MRI Lie Detector; but as last week's episode of the Mythbuster's (Dec 5, 2007) proved even the MRI Lie Detector can be beaten. If that is true then the chances of someone coming up with a unique brain print for you lock that you and ONLY you could repeat with frequency is pretty remote. Contact me again in 20-40 years and what you describe might be routine.

Currently we don't know what the brain waves mean and since we are reading only the electrical signals we are not getting even half the information that makes up a thought. We use MRIs to tell us what is going and where in the brain, but we only have vague ideas and identifying a particular thought or thought pattern is difficult if not impossible to do. Even if we could identify one decoding it is still beyond us and without understanding the role of the neurotransmitters we may never understand what is going on.

The scanner you are think of would be an EEG and a finger print or laser retinal scanner is much cheaper and we know those technologies work. (EKGs read electrical signals from the heart).

According to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EEG
“Electroencephalography is the neurophysiologic measurement of the electrical activity of the brain by recording from electrodes placed on the scalp or, in special cases, subdurally or in the cerebral cortex. The resulting traces are known as an electroencephalogram (EEG) and represent a summation of post-synaptic potentials from a large number of neurons. These are sometimes called brainwaves, though this use is discouraged, because the brain is not known to broadcast electrical waves. The EEG is a brain function test, but in clinical use it is a "gross correlate of brain activity". Electrical currents are not measured, but rather voltage differences between different parts of the brain.”

According to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurotransmitters
“Neurotransmitters are chemicals that are used to relay, amplify and modulate signals between a neuron and another cell. According to the prevailing beliefs of the 1960s, a chemical can be classified as a neurotransmitter if it meets the following conditions:
- There are precursors and/or synthesis enzymes located in the presynaptic neuron;
- The chemical must be present in the presynaptic element
- It is available in sufficient quantity in the presynaptic neuron to affect the postsynaptic neuron;
- There must be postsynaptic receptors and the ability for the chemical to bind to said receptors
- A biochemical mechanism for inactivation must be present.”

A thought of memory is not stored in the brain cell but in the space between their connections called synapses.

According to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synapse
“Chemical synapses are specialized junctions through which the cells of the nervous system signal to each other and to non-neuronal cells such as those in muscles or glands. Chemical synapses allow the neurons of the central nervous system to form interconnected neural circuits. They are thus crucial to the biological computations that underlie perception and thought. They provide the means through which the nervous system connects to and controls the other systems of the body. A chemical synapse between a motor neuron and a muscle cell is called a neuromuscular junction; this type of synapse is well-understood.”

Answer 2

Actually, there is plenty of research in this area already. Scientists have already managed to hook monkey and human brains to robotics and subjects have been able to control the robotics with brain activity. It's not exactly what you might expect- neurological signals (brain waves) can be mapped- these "maps" can be used to stimulate activities (when the computer receives the correctly mapped signal, it responds with a particular function. Check out:

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2000/monkeys-1206.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4275245.stm

Answer 3

well i always thought the brain waves to be more like an impulse which sends frequencies rather than sound waves


any way try do the research ....knock ur self out

Answer 4

Brain waves are more like electrical impulses than sound waves.

Answer 5

it's possible. It might take 3 to 10 years of research and development.

Also, if you have a brain injury, you probably couldn't get the lock to work for you anymore.


If you really want to pursue this, doing it for car doors would be a really good application.

Answer 6

Interesting, but there's one problem: It's easy to remember someone else's voice or even imagine saying something in their voice vs. saying something like them and some can do that too..No security there I'm afraid.

Answer 7

A squiggly line.