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Michal Irani's team at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel has developed an AI tool called "Universal brain encoder" and announced it at the "Cognitive Computational Neuroscience" conference held in New York. According to a report by heise online on October 20, 2026, the tool can infer what a person is looking at from brain scans alone and generate fairly accurate corresponding images; it can also work in reverse to predict a person's brain activity based on what they are viewing. The report states that the tool aims to help understand how the brain works and is expected to assist locked-in syndrome patients in communicating or to reconstruct dream content. There is currently no qualified factual evidence of further progress on this tool.
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From brain scans to images: How AI reconstructs what a person is seeingDevelopments
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Research team presents Universal brain encoder at conference
Source:heise online
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Oct 20
heise online
From brain scans to images: How AI reconstructs what a person is seeing
A team led by Michal Irani at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel has developed an AI tool called the "Universal brain encoder," which can infer what a person is seeing from brain scans alone and generate fairly accurate corresponding images, and can also work in reverse to predict a person's brain activity based on what they are seeing. The tool was presented last month at the "Cognitive Computational Neuroscience" conference in New York; its goal is to help understand how the brain works, and it is expected to help locked-in syndrome patients communicate or reconstruct dream content.