Brain scans can detect who has better skills

The researchers, who described their findings Wednesday in Science Advances, said the part of the brain involved in complex behavior planning was more active in novices. Qualified surgeons had more activity in the motor cortex, which is important for movement. Researchers, who developed a machine learning system to analyze scans, also showed that training led to a shift towards more intense activity in the motor cortex.

In total, the brains of about 30 surgeons and trainees were monitored while they performed pattern cutting tasks as part of the professional tests for certifications. The brain data was more accurate than the current professional tests used to evaluate the same manual skills, according to the study. The researchers said the system was experimental and undergoing preliminary testing.

Biomedical engineers who did not participate in the research described the results as exciting and as steps toward systems that can assess levels of expertise and competence using neurological data. They add to a growing number of researches on the brain activity of aircraft pilots, air traffic controllers, athletes, doctors and others, in order to evaluate the mental workload , learning skills and eye-hand coordination. Such information could have implications for the way workers are trained and how they do their job, bioengineers said.

The researchers believe that these devices could be used to inform workers about their performance and to predict who would be a good baseball player or a good surgeon.

Neural data could offer more objective measures of performance and skills that medical certification boards currently use, according to the research team, which included engineers and surgeons. In the end, they want to improve the way surgeons are trained, not limit what they can do, they said. A future version of their technology could be used to assess the level of comfort with certain medical procedures or to help doctors determine if they are rusted by certain skills or too tired to operate, they said.

The team is trying to test their system in more realistic contexts and include cognitive skills tests, according to the researchers. For this study, they evaluated only motor performance.

The "social problem of acceptance," said Suvranu De, director of the Center for Modeling, Simulation and Imaging in Medicine at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, is determining for the success of this technology. Doctors must want to use it, said Dr. De, who co-directed the research. Some neuroethicists fear making the evaluation of the brain mandatory.

In recent years, tools to measure the activity of the human brain when people are active (rather than standing still in a giant scanner) have improved and become more widely available. This allows scientists to obtain data in environments closer to those of a normal experiment.

Wednesday's researchers used a technology called fNIRS, an abbreviation for near infrared spectroscopy. A person wears a cap embedded in tiny lasers that emit a near infrared light into the skull. Some of this light is reflected and can be captured by a detector placed nearby.

The quality of the light detected indicates to scientists whether the blood circulating in the brain is oxygenated or not. An increase in oxygenated blood suggests increased brain activity. The device, which had 16 optical sensors of this type, does not measure neuronal activity directly.

Hasan Ayaz, a biomedical engineer from Drexel University, experienced in building fNIRS devices, said the basic principles reported in the study, in which he was not involved, could potentially be useful in areas such as as design and marketing to understand how people use products or make purchases. the decisions. Researchers around the world are showing growing interest in these optical sensors, he said. Similar technology is used to detect brain bleeding, he added.

Silicon Valley investors looking to develop mass market brain interfaces are also experimenting with fNIRS and other similar technologies.

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would be developing an optical brain imaging technology. The company did not respond to a request for comment.

In recent years, the decades-old fNIRS technology "has seen this amazing rebirth … because of [Silicon Valley’s] investment, "said Elizabeth Hillman, biomedical engineer at the Zuckerman Institute at Columbia University.

The resurgence already raises ethical questions about how to act on the brain data acquired with such devices, because the analyzes "may not really capture every aspect" of a person's performance, she said. declared. The new research, in which she was not involved, "is interesting because it could be a valuable tool for training", but much more needs to be done to mitigate the risk of discrimination based on incomplete data. -she adds.

Write to Daniela Hernandez at [email protected]