Scientists Develop Technique To Differentiate Persons Based On Unique 'Brainprints'

Did you know that you can differentiate between persons based not only on fingerprints, but also on brainprints?

That is what a new published article in Nature Neuroscience says. Individuals can be distinguished based on just their special brain activity, with up to 99 percent accuracy, according to Scientific American.

Hence, this method is using functional connectivity MRI (fcMRI) that can click tiny images of brain areas in which the activity is synchronized, and grouped into diverse categories that are called "nodes".

Later, scientists tend to compare the degrees and levels of activity in every node, distinguishing how well the nodes are linked.

"Functional connectivity profiles act as a 'fingerprint' that can accurately identify subjects from a large group," scientists explained.

Results could help the scientists to predict how well the individuals perform on intelligence tests, according to Sputnik International.

However, even though their technique is useful in identifying individuals based on brain activity, scientists do not really expect that the method is going to be used for such a purpose.

"We don't need to put people in a scanner to know who they are," said Emily Finn, lead researcher of the study. "We can identify people by looking at them or fingerprinting them."

"It's just a proof of principle to show there's sufficient information in these scans to tell the difference between people," said Xilin Shen, co-author. "Starting to focus on individuals is a fantastic idea, that's really going to be the future."

Thus, scientists look forward to using the information to find out people who are vulnerable to brain disease.