London -- Scientists at University College London are working on developing a form of mind reading using virtual reality and magnetic resonance imaging.

Their experiment, outlined in the journal Current Biology, involves looking at neural activity to determine what someone is thinking, the Financial Times reported Friday.

The scientists had volunteers navigate around a room in a computerized virtual reality game while an MRI scanner was used to examine their hippocampus, the region of the brain that is used for navigation.

"Surprisingly, just by looking at the brain data we could predict exactly where they were in the virtual reality room," said Eleanor Maguire, project leader.

The experiment is significant because it shows for the first time that memories are laid down in specific structures or patterns in the hippocampus, the newspaper says.

Zurich, Switzerland -- A Swiss doctoral student has made a discovery that medical scientists say could revolutionize magnetic resonance imaging technology.

David Brunner of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and the University of Zurich said he has succeeded in exciting nuclear magnetic resonance imaging in the human body by propagating electromagnetic waves.

Brunner said he developed his theory of using propagating waves for MRI after a colleague took images of a hand and captured so-called fold-over artifacts that seemed to originate from outside the detector's field.

Brunner said that meant signals were recorded not only from the target region but also from a considerable distance -- although the detector was supposed to be sensitive only to its immediate surroundings. That, he said, is only possible if the signals travel, that is, if they propagate as waves.