Bringing the real world into the brain scanner, researchers at The University of Western Ontario from The Centre for Brain and Mind (http://www.uwo.ca/its/brain/) can now determine the action a person was planning, mere¹（仅仅的） moments before that action is actually executed. The findings were published this week in the prestigious² Journal of Neuroscience, in the paper, "Decoding³ Action Intentions from Preparatory Brain Activity in Human Parieto-Frontal Networks."

"This is a considerable step forward in our understanding of how the human brain plans actions," says Jason Gallivan, a Western Neuroscience PhD student, who was the first author on the paper.

Over the course of the one-year study, human subjects had their brain activity scanned using functional⁴ magnetic resonance⁵ imaging (fMRI) while they performed one of three hand movements: grasping the top of an object, grasping the bottom of the object, or simply reaching out and touching⁶ the object. The team found that by using the signals from many brain regions, they could predict, better than chance, which of the actions the volunteer was merely intending to do, seconds later.

"Neuroimaging allows us to look at how action planning unfolds within human brain areas without having to insert electrodes directly into the human brain. This is obviously far less intrusive⁷（侵入的） ," explains Western Psychology⁸ professor Jody Culham, who was the paper's senior author.

Gallivan says the new findings could also have important clinical implications: "Being able to predict a human's desired movements using brain signals takes us one step closer to using those signals to control prosthetic（假体的） limbs in movement-impaired patient populations, like those who suffer from spinal⁹ cord injuries or locked-in syndrome¹⁰."