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Category: neuroscience

The regions and lobes of the brain are identified along with some of the nerves and vessels. The basic functions of the cortex of each lobe are introduced along with principal sulci and gyri. The importance of the left hemisphere for language and the temporal lobe in memory are mentioned along with the concept of cortical localisation. A classical frontal section is used to demonstrate grey and white matter along with the primary internal structures. The brain is one of the largest and most complex organs in the human body. It is made up of more than 100 billion nerves that communicate in trillions of connections called synapses. The brain is made up of many specialised areas that work together: The cortex is the outermost layer of brain cells. the human brain is explained in this video. Full documentary of the human brain.

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Analysis: humans make about 35,000 decisions every day so is it possible for AI to deal with a similar volume of high decision uncertainty?

Artificial intelligence (AI) that can think for itself may still seem like something from a science-fiction film. In the recent TV series Westworld, Robert Ford, played by Anthony Hopkins, gave a thought-provoking speech: “we can’t define consciousness because consciousness does not exist. Humans fancy that there’s something special about the way we perceive the world and yet, we live in loops as tight and as closed as the [robots] do, seldom questioning our choices – content, for the most part, to be told what to do next.”

Mimicking realistic human-like cognition in AI has recently become more plausible. This is especially the case in Computational Neuroscience, a rapidly expanding research area that involves the computational modelling of the brain to provide quantitative, computational theories.

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Sleep is essential to all animals with a nervous system. Nevertheless, the core cellular function of sleep is unknown, and there is no conserved molecular marker to define sleep across phylogeny. Time-lapse imaging of chromosomal markers in single cells of live zebrafish revealed that sleep increases chromosome dynamics in individual neurons but not in two other cell types. Manipulation of sleep, chromosome dynamics, neuronal activity, and DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) showed that chromosome dynamics are low and the number of DSBs accumulates during wakefulness. In turn, sleep increases chromosome dynamics, which are necessary to reduce the amount of DSBs. These results establish chromosome dynamics as a potential marker to define single sleeping cells, and propose that the restorative function of sleep is nuclear maintenance.

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It sounds like science fiction: a device that can reconnect a paralyzed person’s brain to his or her body. But that’s exactly what the experimental NeuroLife system does. Developed by Battelle and Ohio State University, NeuroLife uses a brain implant, an algorithm and an electrode sleeve to give paralysis patients back control of their limbs. For Ian Burkhart, NeuroLife’s first test subject, the implications could be life-changing.

Featured in this episode:

Batelle:
https://www.battelle.org/

Ohio State University
https://wexnermedical.osu.edu/

Producer and Editor — Alan Jeffries
Camera — Zach Frankart, Alan Jeffries
Sound Recordist — Brandon MacLean
Graphics — Sylvia Yang
Animators — Ricardo Mendes, James Hazael, Andrew Embury.
Sound Mix and Design — Cadell Cook.

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In a way, the connectome is also a foundation for understanding far more complex nervous systems like our own.

“If a worm can do so much with so few neurons, and we have orders of magnitude more neurons,” Paul Sternberg, a biology professor at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, told Scientific American, “then we’re amazing.”

The datasets that were generated from and analysed in the current study are available at wormwiring.org

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Music has proven time and again to be an important component of human culture. From its ceremonial origin to modern medical usage for personal motivation, concentration, and shifting mood, music is a powerful balm for the human soul. Though traditional “music therapy” encompasses a specific set of practices, the broader use of music as a therapeutic tool can be seen nowadays as doctors are found recommending music for a wide variety of conditions.

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A new method enables researchers to test algorithms for spotting genes that contribute to a complex trait or condition, such as autism.

Researchers often study the genetics of complex traits using genome-wide association studies (GWAS). In these studies, scientists compare the genomes of people who have a condition with those of people without the condition, looking for genetic variants likely to contribute to the condition. These studies often require tens of thousands of people to yield statistically significant results.

GWAS have identified more than 100 genomic regions associated with schizophrenia, for example, and 12 linked to autism. Results are often difficult to interpret, however. Causal variants for a condition may be inherited with nearby sections of DNA that do not play a role.

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You don’t improve the body by breaking its parts. In the case of prostate cancer this might be a fair trade-off, but unless you have a specific medical condition that is serious and life-threatening you should not be poisoning yourself with metabolism breaking chemicals. They will have negative impacts all over the body as a rule.

  • Prostate cancer patients who take a hormone-suppressing drug may be at an increased risk for dementia and Alzheimer’s, a study has found.
  • The study of more than 150,000 men found a link between the degenerative diseases and a treatment drug called androgen deprivation therapy.
  • Researchers cautioned doctors to further consider the risks of ADT before giving it to their patients to treat prostate cancer.
  • Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

A study of more than 150,000 men with prostate cancer found that a certain hormone treatment is linked with increased risks of dementia and Alzheimer’s.

There’s a 20-percent higher chance of having dementia for older men who have taken the prostate cancer treatment, according to the research study from JAMA Network. That drug treatment, called androgen deprivation therapy (ADT), is used to suppress male hormones (like testosterone) that can help to spread prostate cancer in the body.

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