According to the scientists who conducted the study, however, it could be the start of something much more.
“We’re now able to eavesdrop on the brain in real life,” Dr. Josef Parvizi, the director of Stanford’s Human Intracranial Cognitive Electrophysiology Program and lead scientist behind the studio, said to Goldman.
To conduct the study, Parvizi and company monitored electrical activity in a region of the brain called the intraparietal sulcus which, according to earlier studies, has ties to numerosity, or the mathematical equivalent of literacy, as Goldman explained.
As expected, the Stanford scientists experienced a reaction occurring on that part of the brain when basic math was asked of the subjects. His team also compared those results with video recordings of the patients interacting with friends and family, and determined that just discussing quantitative concepts caused that part of the brain to become active.
“You are able to see how neurons within the human brain are working in a real life setting,” Parvizi told Time Magazine.
“The patient doesn’t need to talk to you. They can think about numbers and you can see that red mark (corresponding with activity in a particular brain region) go up,” he said to CNN.