This article was taken from the December 2014 issue of WIRED magazine. Be the first to read WIRED's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.

This 3D brain is not a model -- it's a real human brain, firing electric signals as it thinks. "We are not just recording brain activity in real time, but also visualising it for people to experience how the brain functions," says neuroscientist Adam Gazzaley of the University of California San Francisco, who built the Glass Brain project along with the Swartz Centre at UC San Diego.

To visualise the data in 3D, Gazzaley used open-source video-gaming engine Unity. Different EEG frequencies are displayed, and MRI scan data helps map the rhythms on to their brain region. "We were interested in whether this could be a real-time diagnostic for patients," Gazzaley says. His lab uses the mechanics of video games to help train patients' brains (see 05.14) as a form of therapy. "Our games are adaptive, so as soon as the patient figures out how to do something, the gameplay shifts into a harder state," he says. "What we are excited to do with Glass Brain is to use real-time brain activity, along with performance, to guide the game." This means when people look at their own glass brain, they can fly right into it and manipulate it. "We can build the signals into our gameplay so that your brain guides the game challenges."

This article was originally published by WIRED UK