Systematic network lesioning reveals the core white matter scaffold of the human brain Introduction Brain lesions due to conditions such as traumatic brain injury (TBI), stroke and multiple sclerosis (MS) can have focal, region-specific consequences as well as diffuse effects upon cortical circuitry (Van Horn et al., 2012). For this reason, the ability to quantify injury-related connectomic changes in a systematic manner is critical for the evaluation of injury severity and for the personalization of treatment after neurotrauma. In both health and disease, network theory can provide essential insight into the structural properties of brain connectivity (Sporns, 2011), particularly by providing quantitative measures of lesion impact upon neural structure and function, with possible relevance to the prediction of clinical outcome variables and to the task of designing patient-tailored rehabilitation protocols (Irimia et al., 2012a,b). Materials and Methods Subjects and Data Acquisition Image Processing Connectivity Calculation Connectogram Design Figure 1. Network Measures
Brain Structure Mirrors the Universe ONE IS ONLY micrometers wide. The other is billions of light-years across. One shows neurons in a mouse brain. The other is a simulated image of the universe. Mark Miller, a doctoral student at Brandeis University, is researching how particular types of neurons in the brain are connected to one another. An international group of astrophysicists used a computer simulation last year to recreate how the universe grew and evolved. What struck me about this is not the similarity between neuron and universe, though it’s striking — rather it’s the continuity of parallels one finds whenever one looks into the structures of nature. From Hermetics to the Tao of Physics — A Universe of Parallels “As above, so below,” goes the Hermetic belief — “That which is Below corresponds to that which is Above, and that which is Above, corresponds to that which is Below, to accomplish the miracles of the One Thing”. “I had several discussions with Heisenberg. Subjective and Objective, Physiology and Veda
Miniature bouncing tennis balls reveal cellular interiors I admit it, I love my job(s). I love doing science, and I love reporting science. In particular, I love it when my expectations are confounded, as they recently were in a paper I read. What I found were results that are still a bit preliminary. Randomness generates a map Imagine that you want to explore a house. As you track the average location of the tennis balls, you map out the walls, beds, curtains, doors, and windows (the tennis balls that exit the window never return, as is often the case in real life). It turns out that you can do the same thing in a cell. It sounds great, but, in practice, you would be waiting a very long time to get that image. The key to this technique, though, is determining the particle position as accurately as possible as a function of time. A quantum locator To understand how the researchers improved their position detector, we need to understand a little bit about light. This is where quantum mechanics gives us a good kicking.
Study showing that humans have some psychic powers caps Daryl Bem's career It took eight years and nine experiments with more 1,000 participants, but the results offer evidence that humans have some ability to anticipate the future. "Of the various forms of ESP or psi, as we call it, precognition has always most intrigued me because it's the most magical," said Daryl Bem, professor of psychology emeritus, whose study will be published in the American Psychological Association's Journal of Personality and Social Psychology sometime next year. "It most violates our notion of how the physical world works. The phenomena of modern quantum physics are just as mind-boggling, but they are so technical that most non-physicists don't know about them," said Bem, who studied physics before becoming a psychologist. Publishing on this topic has gladdened the hearts of psi researchers but stumped doubting social psychologists, who cannot fault Bem's mainstream and widely accepted methodology. All but one of the nine experiments confirmed the hypothesis that psi exists.
Urban Computing Reveals the Hidden City In his essay “Walking in the City,” the French scholar Michel de Certeau talks about the “invisible identities of the visible.” He is talking specifically about the memories and personal narratives associated with a location. Until recently, this information was only accessible one-to-one—that is, by talking to people who had knowledge of a place. But what if that data became one-to-many, or even many-to-many, and easily accessible via some sort of street-level interface that could be accessed manually, or wirelessly using a smartphone? This is essentially the idea behind urban computing, where the city itself becomes a kind of distributed computer. The pedestrian is the moving cursor; neighborhoods, buildings, and street objects become the interface; and the smartphone is used to “click” or “tap” that interface. Smartphone in hand, what can the modern-day flaneur expect to find in this newly digitized urban environment? Is the urban computer a good thing?
World's most detailed scans will reveal how brain works 5 March 2013Last updated at 13:27 ET By Pallab Ghosh Science correspondent, BBC News Continue reading the main story Daydream Believer: an MRI scan of the brain at rest. Regions in yellow are strongly linked to the area indicated by the blue spot. A Little Bit Me: composite of the scans of 20 individuals. Regions in yellow and red are linked to the parietal lobe of the brain's right hemisphere. A Little Bit You: A comparison of an individual MRI (left) with an average composite from 12 subjects (right). Listen To The Band: yellow and red regions are activated by a task involving listening to stories, whereas green and blue regions are more strongly activated by a task involving arithmetic calculations. It's Nice To Be With You: yellow and red areas are involved in processing social interactions. I Wanna Be Free: a map of the brain's protective sheath, called myelin. Shades Of Grey: brain activations in the brain's grey matter. Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story
Self-Assembling Molecules Like These May Have Sparked Life on Earth - Wired Science When his students successfully converted chemical precursors into an RNA-like molecule in the form of a yellow gel, Nicholas Hud scribbled down the surprising recipe. Image: Nicholas Hud For Nicholas Hud, a chemist at the Georgia Institute of Technology, the turning point came in July of 2012 when two of his students rushed into his office with a tiny tube of gel. The contents, which looked like a blob of lemon Jell-O, represented the fruits of a 20-year effort to construct something that looked like life from the cacophony of chemicals that were available on the early Earth. To some biochemists, Hud’s attempts to find an evolutionary precursor to ribonucleic acid may have seemed a fool’s errand. The dominant theory to explain the origins of life — known as the RNA world hypothesis — regards ribonucleic acid as the first biological molecule. If RNA was indeed the first biological molecule, discovering how it first formed would illuminate the birth of life. From Soup to Structure
Brain Structures and Their Functions The nervous system is your body's decision and communication center. The central nervous system (CNS) is made of the brain and the spinal cord and the peripheral nervous system (PNS) is made of nerves. Together they control every part of your daily life, from breathing and blinking to helping you memorize facts for a test. Nerves reach from your brain to your face, ears, eyes, nose, and spinal cord... and from the spinal cord to the rest of your body. Sensory nerves gather information from the environment, send that info to the spinal cord, which then speed the message to the brain. The brain then makes sense of that message and fires off a response. The brain is made of three main parts: the forebrain, midbrain, and hindbrain. The Cerebrum: The cerebrum or cortex is the largest part of the human brain, associated with higher brain function such as thought and action. What do each of these lobes do? Note that the cerebral cortex is highly wrinkled.
How Science Turned a Struggling Pro Skier Into an Olympic Medal Contender - Wired Science Saslong.org/R.Perathoner Steven Nyman is poised at the starting gate, alert, coiled, ready. A signal sounds: three even tones followed by a single, more urgent pitch, sending Nyman kicking onto the Val Gardena downhill ski course. He pushes five times with his poles, accelerating as quickly as possible, stabbing the snow frantically. He skates forward with abbreviated strokes, neon green boots moving up and down, his focus on building as much momentum as possible. Nyman is feeling good. In the world of downhill racing, Nyman, 30, is a grizzled journeyman, a fixture on the World Cup circuit who for most of his 11-year professional career has been stuck solidly in the middle of the pack. Until now. In the wake of a season-ending Achilles tear in 2011, Nyman embarked on a new training regimen. Hours in a Wind TunnelAround four seconds into the run, Nyman goes into his tuck—knees bent at 90-degree angles, back parallel to the ground, hands forward, head up. It was forged in a wind tunnel.