A recent research has been able to decode brain activity of monkeys. It has been claimed by a team from Washington University in St Louis that they managed to nail down the planning approach of brain activity of monkeys, while they spotted an obstacle before reaching a target.

Published in the online edition of the journal Science, the study showed how different parameters play a key role in the firing rate of a single neuron. For the research, both the monkeys had different cognitive styles, as one was quite active while the other one was a lot smoother. It has further been claimed by Daniel Moran, associate professor of biomedical engineering at the Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, that they observed the way the two approached their target. Even before they moved an inch, the team tracked down their brain activity.

“I was frustrated because I couldn’t figure out why the data looked so inconsistent. So I separated the data by monkey, and then I could see, wow, they’re very different. They’re approaching this task differently and that’s kind of cool”, said Doctoral student Thomas Pearce who designed the task for the research.

Though it was quite clear before the research that they had unique personalities, the team didn’t had any clue about the changes in their neural recordings.