New Tech Structural brain imaging has revolutionized the fields of neuroscience and medicine. The American neurosurgeon Walter Dandy first introduced ventriculography and later developed pneumoencephalography, early imaging methods in the early 1900s; however, both procedures carried significant risks and could be quite painful. The technique of cerebral angiography was introduced in the late 1920's by neurologist Egas Moniz and this technique became refined and is still an important tool that is used in neurosurgery (White, Bell, & Mellick, 1973). Further advancements such as computerized tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and positron emission tomography (PET) have led to researchers and physicians being able to visualize the brain and other areas of the body in order for diagnostic, treatment, and research purposes. The advancements in neuro-imaging have led to many remarkable discoveries.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is an established technique that allows for researchers to view how the brain is activated or reacts to stimuli. Using a combination of computational models and fMRI techniques researchers at the UC Berkeley have recently started to decode brain activation patterns and restructure people's visual experiences. The early results of this research have been targeted at recreating computerized images of movie trailers (Nishimoto et al., 2011).
Earlier efforts at the reconstruction of visual patterns by means of using brain scans were unsuccessful because the blood flow signals measured from fMRI scans change more slowly than do the actual neural signals that encode visual information. Due…