The unique nature of fingerprints and the difficulty required to alter them have historically made them reliable indicators of human identity, but according to new research published in Monday’s edition of the journal Nature Neuroscience, they may have some competition.
Emily Finn, a Ph.D. student in neuroscience at Yale University in Connecticut and her colleagues found that a person’s brain activity could be every bit as unique as the impression left behind by the fraction ridges on his or her fingers. They used fMRI images in order to create brain “connectivity profiles” which could then be used to successfully identify people.
Finn explained that most previous studies used fMRI data as a way to compare and contrast patients and healthy controls. While those studies have provided a lot of information, they “tend to obscure individual differences which may be important,” she said in a statement. Along with co-first author Xilin Shen, Finn set out to try a different approach.
Finn, Shen, and their colleagues acquired fMRI state from 126 participants who had undergone a total of six scans over a 48-hour period. During four of the sessions, the participants performed a variety of different cognitive tasks, while in the other two, they simply remained at rest.
Discovery could help detect, treat neuropsychiatric conditions
The research team looked at brain activity in 268 different regions, focusing specifically on the coordinated activity between different pairs of regions. This highly coordinated activity suggests that two regions are functionally connected, the Yale team explained in a statement.
Based solely on the strength of these connections throughout the entire brain, they were able to identify individuals using only fMRI data if the individual was currently engaged in some kind of task or was at rest. Furthermore, they were able to predict how each of the subjects would perform on different duties. Their discovery could help identify those at risk of neuropsychiatric diseases, or help treat these conditions based on a patient’s brain connectivity profile.
The data used in the research came from the Human Connectome Project, an initiative led by the WU-Minn Consortium. Primarily funding was provided to the Yale scientists by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), which also funds the WU-Minn Consortium, the university said.
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Feature Image: Michael S. Helfenbein/Yale
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