'The Matrix' style automatic learning to soon become reality

London, Dec 10 (ANI): Learning a new skill in the future might involve nothing more than sitting in front of a computer screen and waiting for it to upload, according to scientists.

Scientists at Boston University and ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories in Kyoto, Japan, have said that "downloading" new skills into the brains just like characters on 'The Matrix' is set to become a reality.

The researchers have been studying how a functional magnetic resonance machine (FMRI) can "induce" knowledge in someone through their visual cortex by sending signals that change their brain activity pattern.

Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine found recently that if a molecule called PKR is inhibited, it leads to brain activity that leads to the formation of long-term memories in the adult brain.

What's more is that this molecule can be artificially blocked, leading to the possibility of a "memory-enhancing drug".

"It is indeed quite amazing that we can also enhance both memory and brain activity with a drug that specifically targets PKR," the Daily Mail quoted Mauro Costa-Mattioli from Baylor as saying.

"Our identity and uniqueness is made up of our memories. This molecule could hold the key to how we can keep our memories longer, but also how we create new ones," he said.

No medication is needed for the process, called Decoded Neurofeedback, or "DecNef", and the subject doesn't even have to be awake, he or she simply has their brain activity changed to a "target" pattern, which could be anything from that of a star footballer to a master chess player.

"Adult early visual areas are sufficiently plastic to cause visual perceptual learning," Takeo Watanabe, lead author from the University of Boston, said.

The researchers of the study were well aware of the fact that their technique had worked because the FMRI volunteers all underwent visual skill tests and had their results compared with those of people not given the treatment, and the former had far better scores.

The study has been recently published in Science. (ANI)