This is What a Thought Looks Like

What do a fish's thoughts look like? If you're like me, you've always wondered that, and now we've got an answer, thanks to a team of Japanese researchers.

The seven second video of a zebrafish's brain is being called "a fundamental leap forward in our understanding of how brains work," by Jamie Condliffe, a journalist in the UK. The thought here, though primitive, is of the coming meal the fish foresees when it spots some prey. 

The story of how this came to be is a little complicated, but Slate has a video explainer of how the images came to be here. (It involves inserting a gene into the fish that makes neuron activity increase in fluorescence.)

"The accomplishment is obviously a marvel in itself, but the scientists involved see it leading to a range of practical applications," writes Joseph Stromberg of Smithsonian. "If, for example, scientists had the ability to quickly map the parts of the brain affected by a chemical under consideration as a drug, new and effective psychiatric medications could be more easily developed."

It really is a cool little video, even though it doesn't look like too much. It's worth taking a look at because, come on, what are you going to do in seven seconds?