60 Minutes highlights advances in CMU brain science research
60 Minutes highlights advances in CMU brain science research
By Stacy Kish
Ten years ago, Lesley Stahl, a correspondent with the CBS program “60 Minutes,” interviewed Carnegie Mellon University’s Marcel Just and Tom Mitchell about the use of brain imaging and machine learning to identify thoughts — based on brain activation patterns or neural signatures. During the program, the researchers showed how functional MRI could be used to identify the thought of a physical object, like a screwdriver, from a person’s brain scans. View the 2009 segment online with “60 Minutes Rewind.”
As the decade draws to a close, Stahl returns to CMU’s campus for an update. Just, the D.O. Hebb University Professor of Psychology at the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences, and his colleagues can now apply their research method to see brain activation patterns for scientific concepts, such as “dark matter,” as well as other complex, abstract concepts, including emotions like “jealousy” and “faith.” Just’s latest work focuses on detecting whether or not a person has been thinking about suicide.
The program aired on Sunday, Nov. 24. You can watch the segment on the "60 Minutes" website.
