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Inside Paul Allen's Plan to Reverse-Engineer the Human Brain - Wired Science In 2003, Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen spent $100 million to build the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle. With laser-equipped microscopes and custom brain-slicers, the institute has mapped the brains of mice, monkeys, and humans, showing which genes are turned on—and where—to better understand vision, memory, autism, and other neural phenomena. Last year Allen ponied up another $300 million to aim the institute at a narrower but more ambitious goal: a complete understanding of how the mouse brain interprets visual information. To succeed, they’ll have to go beyond static gene maps and learn how to watch a living brain in action. The new method will track electrical activity in neurons—not just in one mouse but many. Of all the things you could have invested in, why brain research? Well, as a programmer you’re working with very simple structures compared to the brain. How do you think your investment has paid off so far? Oh, I think it’s had a real impact.
Brains flush toxic waste in sleep, including Alzheimer’s-linked protein, study of mice finds Scientists say this nightly self-clean by the brain provides a compelling biological reason for the restorative power of sleep. “Sleep puts the brain in another state where we clean out all the byproducts of activity during the daytime,” said study author and University of Rochester neurosurgeon Maiken Nedergaard. Those byproducts include beta-amyloid protein, clumps of which form plaques found in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients. Staying up all night could prevent the brain from getting rid of these toxins as efficiently, and explain why sleep deprivation has such strong and immediate consequences. Too little sleep causes mental fog, crankiness, and increased risks of migraine and seizure. Rats deprived of all sleep die within weeks. Although as essential and universal to the animal kingdom as air and water, sleep is a riddle that has baffled scientists and philosophers for centuries. One line of thinking was that sleep helps animals to conserve energy by forcing a period of rest.
Dopamine regulates the motivation to act Printer friendly version Share 10 January 2013 Asociación RUVID The widespread belief that dopamine regulates pleasure could go down in history with the latest research results on the role of this neurotransmitter. Researchers have proved that it regulates motivation, causing individuals to initiate and persevere to obtain something either positive or negative. The neuroscience journal Neuron publishes an article by researchers at the Universitat Jaume I of Castellón that reviews the prevailing theory on dopamine and poses a major paradigm shift with applications in diseases related to lack of motivation and mental fatigue and depression, Parkinson's, multiple sclerosis, fibromyalgia, etc. and diseases where there is excessive motivation and persistence as in the case of addictions. Studies had shown that dopamine is released by pleasurable sensations but also by stress, pain or loss. Application for depression and addiction Attached files Dopamine
Alzheimer's breakthrough hailed as 'turning point' Media playback is unsupported on your device The discovery of the first chemical to prevent the death of brain tissue in a neurodegenerative disease has been hailed as the "turning point" in the fight against Alzheimer's disease. More work is needed to develop a drug that could be taken by patients. But scientists say a resulting medicine could treat Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Huntington's and other diseases. In tests on mice, the Medical Research Council showed all brain cell death from prion disease could be prevented. Prof Roger Morris, from King's College London, said: "This finding, I suspect, will be judged by history as a turning point in the search for medicines to control and prevent Alzheimer's disease." He told the BBC a cure for Alzheimer's was not imminent but: "I'm very excited, it's the first proof in any living animal that you can delay neurodegeneration. "The world won't change tomorrow, but this is a landmark study." Cells starve 'Very dramatic' Side effects are an issue.
Humans, Version 3.0 Credit: Flickr user Suvcon Where are we humans going, as a species? If science fiction is any guide, we will genetically evolve like in X-Men, become genetically engineered as in Gattaca, or become cybernetically enhanced like General Grievous in Star Wars. All of these may well be part of the story of our future, but I’m not holding my breath. The first of these—natural selection—is impracticably slow, and there’s a plausible case to be made that natural selection has all but stopped acting on us. Genetic engineering could engender marked changes in us, but it requires a scientific bridge between genotypes—an organism’s genetic blueprints—and phenotypes, which are the organisms themselves and their suite of abilities. And machine-enhancement is part of our world even today, manifesting in the smartphones and desktop computers most of us rely on each day. Simply put, none of these scenarios are plausible for the immediate future. But how do I know this is feasible? And culture’s trick?
How and where imagination occurs in human brains Philosophers and scientists have long puzzled over where human imagination comes from. In other words, what makes humans able to create art, invent tools, think scientifically and perform other incredibly diverse behaviors? The answer, Dartmouth researchers conclude in a new study, lies in a widespread neural network -- the brain's "mental workspace" -- that consciously manipulates images, symbols, ideas and theories and gives humans the laser-like mental focus needed to solve complex problems and come up with new ideas. Their findings, titled "Network structure and dynamics of the mental workspace," appear the week of Sept. 16 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "Our findings move us closer to understanding how the organization of our brains sets us apart from other species and provides such a rich internal playground for us to think freely and creatively," says lead author Alex Schlegel , a graduate student in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences.
Crows could be the key to understanding alien intelligence But seriously, Annalee.... We're all ready for you to write the definitive science fiction novel about crows. In fact, you've been teasing us all far too long now :-) Write it already! Flagged I'm just gonna leave this here.... Putting Bad Memories to Bed Researchers selectively erase methamphetamine-related memories in mice and rats. The scientists taught mice and rats to associate methamphetamine with various stimuli. Then, after the rodents consolidated their drug-related memories, the scientists infused some of the animals’ amygdalas with an actin-depolymerizing agent and then tested their behavior when exposed to drug-related stimuli. The control mice showed signs of methamphetamine-related memories, while mice with inhibited actin polymerization did not respond to the stimuli. The treatment mice did not experience global memory loss, however; they still responded to stimuli associated with food rewards or electric shocks. The researchers chose to depolymerize actin because F-actin is known to be important for rapid changes in neural structures called dendritic spines, which are thought to be involved in memory maintenance.
Scanner Reads Letters From Brains Scientists have given a new meaning to the term “reading” one’s mind: they’ve developed technology that converts brain activity into an image. Tasty Tech Eye Candy of the Week At the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour at Radboud University in The Netherlands, a research team used a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine, or fMRI, to see what areas of the brain were active when a person looked at a letter. An fMRI detects areas in the brain that have more blood flowing into them. The experiment involved scanning the occipital lobe, a region at the back of the brain where visual information gets processed, of people who had been told to look at letters (B, R, A, I, N and S). Brain Scanner Customizes Web Surfing For You The next step will be to use a more powerful scanner, one that can see ten times as much detail as the one from this experiment, and provide better resolution for the computer program that “reads” the mind of the subject.
The Problem with the Neuroscience Backlash Aristotle thought that the function of the brain was to cool the blood. That seems ludicrous now; through neuroscience, we know more about the brain and how it works than ever before. But, over the past several years, enthusiasm has often outstripped the limits of what current science can really tell us, and the field has given rise to pop neuroscience, which attempts to explain practically everything about human behavior and culture through the brain and its functions. A backlash against pop neuroscience is now in full swing. Unfortunately, the book is also prone to being misread. But that claim is simply false. It is reasonable to think, based on current research, that no single spot of the brain maps to hatred. In the current backlash again brain science, it is important to realize that neuroimaging is just one of many tools used in neuroscience. But the idea that the mind is separate from the brain no longer makes sense. Credit: BSIP/UIG/Getty.
Lab-Grown Model Brains Cross-section of cerebral organoid; All cells in blue, neural stem cells in red, and neurons in green. MADELINE A. LANCASTERIn an Austrian laboratory, a team of scientists has grown three-dimensional models of embryonic human brains. “This demonstrates the enormous self-organizing power of human cells,” said Jürgen Knoblich from the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Science, who led the study published in Nature today (August 28). Knoblich cautioned that the organoids are not “brains-in-a-jar.” These models will not help to unpick the brain’s connectivity or higher mental functions but they are excellent tools for studying both its early development and disorders that perturb those first steps. Madeline Lancaster, a member of Knoblich’s group, created the 3-D models from small clusters of stem cells. Other scientists have developed organoids that mimic several human organs, including eyes, kidneys, intestines, and even brains.
How the human brain sees a 100-mph fastball I remember as a kid reading a book by Umpire Ron Luciano about Nolan Ryan's exploding fast ball. I found an article in Sports Illustrated that had it. Ryan was the first man I ever saw who was capable of throwing an exploding fastball. Although we knew he was supposedly the fastest gun in the National League, I didn't hear him pitch until 1972, after the Mets traded him to the Angels. Sight, Sound Out of Sync in Kids With Autism Says Study The new diagnostic term “autism spectrum disorder” doesn’t reflect how devastating it can be for parents to have children limited in their ability to communicate and show affection, but it does reflect how little is still known about the condition that affects roughly 2 percent of children in the United States. Doctors have made great strides in accurately describing and diagnosing autism, but its causes remain opaque. A recent Vanderbilt University offers neurological findings that help explain for the disorder’s seemingly disparate symptoms. The study, published in January in the Journal of Neuroscience, found that children with autism have a broader window of time than normal children during which their brains process two distinct sensory stimuli as aspects of the same event. “The auditory and visual signals do not match in their brains,” Camarata explained. What’s more, the study found, that longer windows corresponded to greater difficulties processing speech.
how close are we to a 'forgetting pill'? I've been a little disconcerted by the recent appearance in the popular science press of a number of articles seeming to claim that we're just around the corner from being able to erase painful or traumatic memories. For example: The articles are beautifully written, full of interesting and thought-provoking questions, and obviously the product of a great deal of work. I think good science writing is really important and greatly value the work that writers like Jonah Lehrer and Jerry Adler do. This matters because many thousands of people suffer enormous anguish every day with the dreadful effects of post-traumatic stress or related conditions, and may have their hopes raised that a "forgetting pill" is just around the corner. When I describe my research to anyone, the conversation invariably ends up leading to the film, “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”. ReferencesBrunet A, Orr SP, Tremblay J, Robertson K, Nader K, & Pitman RK (2008).