The Boston Globe's Carey Goldberg reports today on a novel non-invasive technique that allows individuals to "Literally" turn thoughts into actions. The pioneering technique developed by Seung-Schik Yoo and detailed in this week's NeuroReport used an fMRI scanner to analyze the activity of volunteers' brains and translate it into moves they could make in a maze.

Yoo and his colleagues began the experiment by doing a bit of brain-mapping on the subjects, determining which areas most ''lit up" during the different kinds of thought. They then linked the pattern for each type of thought to computer control of the cursor. ''What we do is translate thought into distinct categories and, amazingly, we can do that," he said. ''We can detect classes of thought." And that is only the beginning, he said. He said he believes it is possible to detect 20 or more classes of thought, enough to allow a patient to move a cursor on a virtual typewriter.

But don't expect great things like mind reading anytime soon suggested Stanford's Christopher deCharm, "That is still decades away." Now that's a prediction that's directly within the timeline of our emerging neurosociety. Think cognitive liberty is important yet?