Mind-reading technology being researched to foil terrorist attempts

Vijayan K. Asari, the Ohio Research Scholars Chair in wide area surveillance, is studying whether brain wave patterns can be decoded to detect whether a person is engaged in terrorism or other violent activities.

Chris Stewart/Staff photographer Vijayan K. Asari, the Ohio Research Scholars Chair in wide area surveillance, is studying whether brain wave patterns can be decoded to detect whether a person is engaged in terrorism or other violent activities.

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By Jim DeBrosse, Staff Writer Updated 9:31 PM Sunday, March 14, 2010

DAYTON — Trying to spot terrorists by detecting their weapons has become an endless game of cat and mouse, says University of Dayton researcher Vijayan Asari.

But what if you could spot a terrorist by reading his mind? That sounds like science fiction, but Asari says technology exists for detecting brain wave patterns indicating a person is intent on doing harm.

“In every brain activity, there is a characteristic deviation in the brain wave pattern,” whether it’s a mental activity like doing math or spelling a word, or an emotion like jealousy or anger, he said. “It is just a matter of training a (detection) system to identify the long-term intentions” of those plotting violence.

Asari, 54, will soon move his team of 14 researchers from Old Dominion University to the University of Dayton, where he will become the university’s third Ohio Research Scholar. The state-funded program provides millions of dollars in grants to scientists who can create research clusters at Ohio’s universities for developing promising new technologies.

An electrical and computer engineer, Asari’s primary areas of research have been in face recognition, image enhancement and wide area surveillance, He hopes to work with the human factors psychologists at the Air Force Research Laboratory on the next generation of surveillance devices — those aimed at “state of mind.”

For decades doctors have measured the levels of electrical activity in different parts of the brain using electroencephalography, or EEG. By placing electrodes around the skull, an EEG device picks up the collective signals from the billions of tiny electrical sparks between neurons as they “talk” to each other, communicating information, emotions and sensations.

Standard EEG helmets use 19 electrodes, but the latest devices have as many as 256, giving a more detailed look at brain activity, Asari said.

One possible application: Placing remote EEG devices outside airport terminals and government buildings.

For those concerned about invasion of privacy, Asari said the devices would scan “only for very specific categories of brain activity” associated “with long-term criminal intentions.”

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2437  or jdebrosse@DaytonDailyNews.com.

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