Clipmarks | Mohir's 'brain' clips

Artificial eye

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 00:29:36 GMT

clipped by: Mohir
clipper's remarks: [The] implant sits mostly outside the eye. The coil around the iris receives wireless power and image data from a microcontroller that can be carried on a belt. The coil transmits data to electronics inside a waterproof titanium case. The electronics controls an electrode array (not visible) connected to nerves in the back of the retina.
This device would be more bio-compatible than others, because it sits mostly outside the eye and therefore carries a reduced risk of inflammation and of a decline in performance with time. So far it has only been tested in pigs but human trials are planned for 2010.

Clip Source: scienceblogs.com

A short piece in the MIT Technology Review describes a new retinal implant designed to remain in place for long periods of time:

In retinal diseases such as acute macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa, the light-sensing cells of the retina may no longer work, even though the neurons that carry signals from these cells to the brain are still healthy. The Boston project uses an array of electrodes to stimulate these cells and reproduce a simplified visual image in the subject's brain. A camera mounted on a pair of eyeglasses captures an image, which is rapidly processed by a microcontroller to produce a simplified picture. This is then wirelessly beamed to the implant, which activates 15 electrodes inside the eye. The implant also receives power wirelessly from the microcontroller.

Tags: technology, neuroscience

Beauty and the Brain

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 15:21:38 GMT

clipped by: Mohir
clipper's remarks: Future work may elucidate the long-term effects of one's surroundings on brain function and the relationship between aesthetically pleasing spaces and their functionality. What one considers beautiful is, of course, influenced by culture, learning, and experience, and not everything we find beautiful will ultimately be traceable to the structure and function of our brain. The larger question "What is beauty?" still poses a major challenge, but answering it no longer seems so impossible.

Clip Source: www.seedmagazine.com

Neuroaesthetics promises to reinvigorate science's search for a theory of beauty.

Why is something beautiful? David Hume argued that beauty exists not in things but "in the mind that contemplates them." And everyone has at some point heard the old saw that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But Plato had a fanciful answer made to argue for a universal truth: In his world of forms, he claimed there existed a perfect Form of Beauty, which was imperfectly manifested in what we call beautiful.

Such knowledge of spatial cognition provides an understanding of the brain's response to the built environment and can inform architects as they consider the aesthetic elements and function of a space. "From an architectural point of view," says Vismann, "I find the correspondence between what occurs in the brain and the physical nature of space and spatial navigation fascinating."

understanding the neural bases of spatial perception will inspire projects, inform the design process

Tags: brain, beauty, perception, neuroaesthetics

The 'satellite navigation' in our brains

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 15:24:35 GMT

clipped by: Mohir
clipper's remarks: n a follow-up study, Dr Spiers and Professor Maguire used the Playstation2 video game "The Getaway" to examine how taxi drivers use their hippocampus and other brain areas when they navigate. Taxi drivers used the virtual reality simulation to navigate the streets of London whilst lying in an fMRI brain scanner. The researchers found that the hippocampus is most active when the drivers first think about their route and plan ahead. By contrast, activity in a diverse network of other brain areas increases as they encounter road blocks, spot expected landmarks, look at the view and worry about the thoughts of their customers and other drivers.

"The hippocampus is crucial for navigation and we use it like a 'sat nav'," says Dr Spiers from the Institute of Behavioural Neuroscience at UCL. "London taxi drivers, who have to know their way around hundreds of thousands of winding streets, have the most refined and powerful innate sat navs, strengthened over years of experience."

Clip Source: www.physorg.com

Our brains contain their own navigation system much like satellite navigation ("sat-nav"), with in-built maps, grids and compasses, neuroscientist Dr Hugo Spiers told the BA Festival of Science at the University of Liverpool today.

The brain's navigation mechanism resides in an area know as the hippocampus, which is responsible for learning and memory and famously shown to be different in London taxi drivers in a Wellcome Trust-funded study carried out by Professor Eleanor Maguire at UCL (University College London).

The study showed that a region of the hippocampus was enlarged in London taxi drivers compared to the general population. Even bus drivers do not have the same enlarged area, and general skill at navigating is not related to hippocampus size, suggesting that the difference is linked to 'The Knowledge' of the city's 250,000 streets built up by taxi drivers over many years.

Tags: gps, brain, navigation

Gender differences seen in brain connections

Tue, 09 Sep 2008 13:56:11 GMT

clipped by: Mohir
clipper's remarks: While the effect of high synaptic density in this region is unknown, the team suspects that there may be other regions where women out-synapse men.

In any case, says DeFelipe, although different synaptic densities indicates different circuitry between men and women, men shouldn't get too cocky: the density of synapses in mice is greater than in humans.

Clip Source: www.newscientist.com

Human brains appear to come in at least two flavours: male and female. Now variations in the density of the synapses that connect neurons may help to explain differences in how men and women think.

Even when intelligence levels are equal, women and men excel at different cognitive tasks. But although brain size and neuron density differ between the sexes, these don't seem to correlate with cognitive differences.

So, Javier DeFelipe at Complutense University in Madrid, Spain, and colleagues counted the number of synapses instead.

The brain tissue they analysed came from the left temporal cortex, a region of the brain involved in emotional and social processing, of four women and four men with epilepsy. The tissue itself was healthy, having been removed to allow doctors to access underlying damaged areas.

The men had up to 52% more synapses per brain "layer" in this region than the women.

Tags: gender, brain, human

Bionic Humans: Top 10 Technologies (part 5)

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 20:35:33 GMT

clipped by: Mohir
clipper's remarks: some more at source.

Clip Source: www.livescience.com

Bionic Eyes

When you're blind, being able to see even the basics of light, movement and shape can make a big difference. Both the Argus II Retinal Prosthesis, currently in FDA trials, and a system being developed by Harvard Research Fellow Dr. John Pezaris record basic visual information via camera, process it into electronic signals and send it wirelessly to implanted electrodes. The Argus II uses electrodes implanted in the eye, which could help people who've lost some of their retinal function. Dr. Pezaris' system, still in the early stages of research, would bypass the eyes entirely, sending visual data straight to the brain. Both systems will work best with people who could once see because their brains will already know how to process the information. "The visual brain depends on visual experience to develop normally," Pezaris explained.

Tags: technology, bionic

Bionic Humans: Top 10 Technologies

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 20:30:53 GMT

clipped by: Mohir
clipper's remarks: rest will follow in separate clips, due to clipping problems

Clip Source: www.livescience.com

cientists are getting closer to creating a bionic human, or at least a $6 million one. Today, we can replicate or restore more organs and various sundry body parts than ever before. From giving sight to the blind to creating a tongue more accurate than any human taste bud, gentlemen, we have the technology.

Clip Source: www.livescience.com

Prosthetics for Your Brain

Replacing a part of your brain isn't as simple as replacing a limb, but in the future it could be. Theodore Berger, a professor at the University of Southern California, created a computer chip that could take the place of the hippocampus, a part of the brain which controls short-term memory and spatial understanding. Frequently damaged by things like Alzheimer's and strokes, a hippocampus implant could help maintain normal function in people who'd otherwise be severely disabled. Berger is still testing this implant, but he'd like to see more. He even wrote a book, "Toward Replacement Parts for the Brain," in 2005.

Tags: bionic, technology

Scientists to study synthetic telepathy

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 20:59:15 GMT

clipped by: Mohir
clipper's remarks: The brain-computer interface would use a noninvasive brain imaging technology like electroencephalography to let people communicate thoughts to each other. For example, a soldier would “think” a message to be transmitted and a computer-based speech recognition system would decode the EEG signals. The decoded thoughts, in essence translated brain waves, are transmitted using a system that points in the direction of the intended target.

“Such a system would require extensive training for anyone using it to send and receive messages,” D’Zmura says. “Initially, communication would be based on a limited set of words or phrases that are recognized by the system; it would involve more complex language and speech as the technology is developed further.”

Clip Source: www.physorg.com

A team of UC Irvine scientists has been awarded a $4 million grant from the U.S. Army Research Office to study the neuroscientific and signal-processing foundations of synthetic telepathy.

The research could lead to a communication system that would benefit soldiers on the battlefield and paralysis and stroke patients, according to lead researcher Michael D’Zmura, chair of the UCI Department of Cognitive Sciences.

“Thanks to this generous grant we can work with experts in automatic speech recognition and in brain imaging at other universities to research a brain-computer interface with applications in military, medical and commercial settings,” D’Zmura says.

Tags: telepathy, computers, communication

Intelligence and Empathy

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 20:09:18 GMT

clipped by: Mohir
clipper's remarks: He stresses that the human mind does not qualify as a completely ‘General Intelligence’ but lies somewhere on the spectrum between AGI on one end and ‘Narrow AI’ on the other. This is one of several reasons why he does not expect AGI to be achieved by mimicking the workings of the human brain.

He describes how our brains fool us into believing that we understand our actions and decisions when we don’t. And why modeling an AI too closely on the human brain might make it too, vulnerable to false notions.
He also says, ‘I think virtual worlds are going to be absolutely critical to the development of Artificial General Intelligence.’ As well as ‘Right now connecting AI’s to virtual worlds is probably the best way to get an AI to have a general human-like embodied experience.’

Clip Source: ieet.org

Ben Goertzel, noted scientist, author, futurist and pioneer in the field of Artificial Intelligence, is today’s featured guest. Topics he discusses include: Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), the singularity, transhumanism, human immortality and how long he expects to live, and why (like your host) he is a founding member of the Order of Cosmic Engineers.

Highlights of the interview include: The mechanism of human empathy seems to have been identified, and so can be reproduced in AI; even AI that is radically different in its thinking from human beings. Doctor Goertzel explains that this empathy is not based on emotion, and he emphasizes that he does not want to create an AI which is governed by its emotions.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the August 13, 2008 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 74 minutes]

MP3

Tags: intelligece, ai, empathy

Sleep on It: How Snoozing Makes You Smarter

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 21:16:37 GMT

clipped by: Mohir
clipper's remarks: This insight paved the way for a new understanding of organic chemistry and earned Kekulé a title of nobility in Germany.

Although most of us have not been ennobled, there is something undeniably familiar about Kekulé’s problem-solving method. Whether deciding to go to a particular college, accept a challenging job offer or propose to a future spouse, “sleeping on it” seems to provide the clarity we need to piece together life’s puzzles. But how does slumber present us with answers?

Clip Source: www.sciam.com

During slumber, our brain engages in data analysis, from strengthening memories to solving problems

Key Concepts

As we snooze, our brain is busily processing the information we have learned during the day.

Sleep makes memories stronger, and it even appears to weed out irrelevant details and background information so that only the important pieces remain.

Our brain also works during slumber to find hidden relations among memories and to solve problems we were working on while awake.

n 1865 Friedrich August Kekulé woke up from a strange dream: he imagined a snake forming a circle and biting its own tail. Like many organic chemists of the time, Kekulé had been working feverishly to describe the true chemical structure of benzene, a problem that continually eluded understanding. But Kekulé’s dream of a snake swallowing its tail, so the story goes, helped him to accurately realize that benzene’s structure formed a ring.

Tags: sleep, brain, memory

The cognitive neuroscience of magic

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 18:32:54 GMT

clipped by: Mohir
clipper's remarks: Magic combines multiple principles of attention, awareness, trust and perception to both overtly and covertly misdirect the audience. Whether they are used for performance art or as a means to illicitly separate victims from their money and valuables, the accomplished performer uses robust and intuitive manipulative devices that are of great interest to neuroscientists pursuing the neural underpinnings of cognition, memory, sensation, social attachment, causal inference and awareness.

Clip Source: scienceblogs.com

In The Conjurer, by Hieronymus Bosch (above), a medieval European magician performs in front of a small crowd. As the spectators marvel at the conjurer's tricks, their attention is diverted away from the pickpockets who steal their belongings. The painting illustrates well that magicians throughout the ages have had an understanding of attention and awareness, and that their art is in large part based on their ability to subtlely manipulate these processes in their audience.

Recently, there has been a great deal of interest in what magic can teach us about the brain.

last month, TED posted a talk by "brain magician" Keith Barry; and a Perspective article in this month's issue of Nature Neviews Neuroscience (which is freely available) suggests that neuroscientists can gain a better understanding not just of cognitive processes such as attention and awareness, but also of the neural correlates of consciousness, by studying magicians and the techniques they use:

Tags: magic, neuroscience

The Brain Unmasked

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 16:46:20 GMT

clipped by: Mohir
clipper's remarks: Diffusion spectrum imaging (DSI) is one of these twists. It uses magnetic resonance signals to track the movement of water molecules in the brain: water diffuses along the length of neural wires, called axons. Scientists can use these diffusion measurements to map the wires, creating a detailed blueprint of the brain's connectivity.

Clip Source: www.technologyreview.com

New imaging technologies reveal the intricate architecture of the brain, creating a blueprint of its connectivity.

The typical brain scan shows a muted gray rendering of the brain, easily distinguished by a series of convoluted folds. But according to Van Wedeen, a neuroscientist at Massachusetts General Hospital, in Boston, that image is just a shadow of the real brain. The actual structure--a precisely organized tangle of nerve cells and the long projections that connect them--has remained hidden until relatively recently.

A variation on MRI called diffusion sensor imaging allows scientists to map the neural fibers that relay signals in the brain. Each fiber in the image represents hundreds to thousands of fibers in the brain, each traveling along the same path.

Tags: brain, mri, technology

Skin cells from an 82-yr.-old ALS patient reprogrammed to form neurons

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 22:36:55 GMT

clipped by: Mohir
clipper's remarks: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a form of motor neuron disease characterized by loss of motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord. These cells are involved in movements, which are generated by the sequential activity of cells in three regions of the central nervous system: they are planned by the activity of neurons in the premotor cortex (whose activity is monitored by brain-computer interfaces), and executed when this activity is relayed to motor neurons in the ventral horn of the spinal cord, via the cells in the primary motor cortex.

Clip Source: scienceblogs.com

A team of researchers from Harvard and Columbia University Medical Center have reprogrammed skin cells from an 82-year-old woman suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis to generate first stem cells and then motor neurons. This is a significant advance which could aid in the development of drug treatments and cell replacement therapies for the condition and related neurodegenerative disorders.

The study, due to be published in the journal Science, demonstrates that skin cells from a chronically diseased elderly patient can be induced to de-differentiate into stem cells and then re-differentiate into motor neurons, which is an important technical achievement. More importantly though, because the technique used resulted in cell lines that are genetically identical to the patient, it will provide researchers with a better model with which they can investigate how the condition develops.

Tags: als, neurons, stem cells

The Neurological Roots of Genius

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 18:02:48 GMT

clipped by: Mohir
clipper's remarks: a very long article, so i could clip only the key concepts.

Clip Source: www.sciam.com

Researchers are finding clues to the basis of brilliance in the brain

Key Concepts

Smarter brains tend to be bigger—at least in certain locations. Researchers have fingered parts of the parietal and frontal lobes as well as a structure called the anterior cingulate as important for superior cognition.

Some studies suggest that the brains of brighter people use less energy to solve certain problems than those of people with lower aptitudes do. But under certain circumstances, scientists have also observed higher neuronal power consumption in individuals with superior mental capacities.

People often overestimate the importance of intellectual ability. Practice and perseverance contribute more to accomplishment than being smart does.

Tags: brain, genius

When Computers Meld With Our Minds

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 20:30:20 GMT

clipped by: Mohir
clipper's remarks: a worthwhile read.

Clip Source: discovermagazine.com

Is your overflowing e-mail in-box a herald of the next stage in human evolution? Those e-mails represent just a small sample of the vast amount of digital information being generated by the gigabyte every minute. If we can cope with this rising flood of information, we are likely to be on track for using technology in the creation of superhuman intelligence, according to Vernor Vinge, futurist, best-selling science fiction author, and retired professor of computer science. Machines will become far more than just tools; they will physically merge with us, seamlessly endowing powers that are currently beyond our imagination. And all of this will happen in our lifetime, Vinge says.

Tags: singularity, brain, computers, mind

Human-frog hybrids reveal autism's secrets

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 15:07:44 GMT

clipped by: Mohir
clipper's remarks: To see if abnormalities in neurotransmitter signalling also underlie autism, Miledi's team collected brain samples from six deceased autistic patients, aged eight to 39. They fused brain-cell membranes, which house neurotransmitter receptors, together with Xenopus egg membranes. As a control, they did the same thing with brain cells from patients with no history of mental disorder.
Miledi's team then doused the frog eggs in neurotransmitter chemicals, and measured the voltage generated within each egg. The neurotransmitter chemicals tell brain cells to pump charged molecules in and out the membrane, creating a voltage across the membrane. Since Xenopus eggs do not respond to the neurotransmitters, the human proteins are completely responsible for any electric current generated.

Four of six autistic brains responded to neurotransmitters chemicals less vigorously than the controls.

Clip Source: www.newscientist.com

Human-frog hybrids might reveal the neurological secrets of autism. By fusing cells from the preserved brains of deceased autistic patients with the eggs of a carnivorous African frog called Xenopus, scientists have started investigating the way the brain cells of people with autism behave.

The frog eggs work a little like human neurons and the hybrid cells act as a surrogate of a living brain with the condition.

"It's almost as if you were studying a neuron in the human brain," says Ricardo Miledi, a neurobiologist at the University of California, Irvine, who developed the approach and has previously used Xenopus eggs to study epilepsy.

Miledi's earlier work has suggested that some brain cells of epilepsy patients have trouble sensing a molecule that helps damp down neuron activity. The proteins in question, called neurotransmitter receptors, sense the chemicals that neurons use to communicate, and Miledi thinks that problems with these proteins underlie epilepsy and other disorders

Tags: brain, autism, health