Scientists from Maastricht University have developed a method to look into the brain of a person and read out who has spoken to him or her and what was said. With the help of neuroimaging and data mining techniques the researchers mapped the brain activity associated with the recognition of speech sounds and voices.
In their Science article “‘Who’ is Saying ‘What’? Brain-Based Decoding of Human Voice and Speech,” the four authors demonstrate that speech sounds and voices can be identified by means of a unique ‘neural fingerprint’ in the listener’s brain. In the future this new knowledge could be used to improve computer systems for automatic speech and speaker recognition.
Seven study subjects listened to three different speech sounds (the vowels /a/, /i/ and /u/), spoken by three different people, while their brain activity was mapped using neuroimaging techniques (fMRI). With the help of data mining methods the researchers developed an algorithm to translate this brain activity into unique patterns that determine the identity of a speech sound or a voice. The various acoustic characteristics of vocal cord vibrations (neural patterns) were found to determine the brain activity.
The story behind the writing of Frankenstein is famous. In 1816, Mary Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley, summering near Lake Geneva in Switzerland, were challenged by Lord Byron to take part in a competition to write a frightening tale. Mary, only 18 years old, later had a waking dream of sorts where she imagined the premise of her book:
When I placed my head on my pillow, I did not sleep, nor could I be said to think. My imagination, unbidden, possessed and guided me, gifting the successive images that arose in my mind with a vividness far beyond the usual bounds of reverie. I saw — with shut eyes, but acute mental vision, — I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half vital motion.
This became the kernel of Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, the novel first published in London in 1818, with only 500 copies put in circulation.
Researchers from Lund University, together with the Roche pharmaceutical company, have developed a method to create a new blood marker capable of detecting whether or not a person has Alzheimer’s disease. If the method is approved for clinical use, the researchers hope eventually to see it used as a diagnostic tool in primary healthcare. This autumn, they will start a trial in primary healthcare to test the technique.
Currently, a major support in the diagnostics of Alzheimer’s disease is the identification of abnormal accumulation of the substance beta-amyloid, which can be detected either in a spinal fluid sample or through brain imaging using a PET scanner.
“These are expensive methods that are only available in specialist healthcare. In research, we have therefore long been searching for simpler diagnostic tools,” says Sebastian Palmqvist, associate professor at the unit for clinical memory research at Lund University, physician at Skåne University Hospital and lead author of the study.
All human experience is rooted in the brain, but we just barely understand how it works. That’s partially because it’s hard to study: Scientists can’t just run experiments on living brains, and experiments on animal brains don’t always translate to humans. That’s why researchers developed the brain organoid, an artificially grown, three-dimensional cluster of human neurons that faithfully mimics brain development — and, as Japanese scientists reported Wednesday in Cell Stem Cell, the neural activity of a living brain as well.
Neurons in a living brain respond to stimuli by “firing” off electrical impulses, which they use to communicate with one another and with other parts of the body. The scientists behind the new paper discovered that the brain organoids they grew from scratch in their lab also started to exhibit synchronized activity, just like neurons in an actual brain. That team included first and co-corresponding author Hideya Sakaguchi, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow at Kyoto University currently at the Salk Institute.
“I was very excited to see some of the neurons activated at the same time robustly at first,” Sakaguchi, who did the first of his experiments in December 2016, tells Inverse. “Neurons first show individual activities, but as they form networks and connections between other neurons, they start to show synchronized activities.”
DMT, an active compound of the psychedelic Ayahuasca, is naturally occurring in the mammalian brain, researchers have discovered. The study revealed DMT levels increased significantly in the rat visual cortex following cardiac arrest.
Although the exact causes of multiple sclerosis still remain unknown, it is assumed that the disease is triggered by a combination of genetic and environmental risk factors. But which? In a mouse model of the disease, researchers at the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and the Geneva University Hospitals (HUG), Switzerland, studied the potential link between transient cerebral viral infections in early childhood and the development of this cerebral autoimmune disease later in life. Indeed, the brain area affected by viral infection during childhood undergoes a change that can call, a long time later, on the immune system to turn against itself at this precise location, triggering autoimmune lesions. These results, which are published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, provide a first step in answering one of the possible environmental causes of this serious disease.
Multiple sclerosis affects one in 1,000 people in Switzerland, two-thirds of whom are women. It is the most common auto-immune disease affecting the brain. Up to date, there is still neither a cure available, nor a clear understanding of the factors that trigger this disease at around 30 years of age. “We asked ourselves whether brain viral infections that could be contracted in early childhood were among the possible causes,” says Doron Merkler, a professor in the Department of Pathology and Immunology in UNIGE’s Faculty of Medicine and senior consultant in the Clinical Pathology Service of the HUG. Such transient brain infections can be controlled quickly by the immune system, without the affected individual even noticing any symptoms. “But these transient infections may, under certain circumstances, leave a local footprint, an inflammatory signature, in the brain,” continues the researcher.
Scientists from Sanford Burnham Prebys have created natural-looking hair that grows through the skin using human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), a major scientific achievement that could revolutionize the hair growth industry. The findings were presented today at the annual meeting of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) and received a Merit Award. A newly formed company, Stemson Therapeutics, has licensed the technology.
More than 80 million men, women and children in the United States experience hair loss. Genetics, aging, childbirth, cancer treatment, burn injuries and medical disorders such as alopecia can cause the condition. Hair loss is often associated with emotional distress that can reduce quality of life and lead to anxiety and depression.
“Our new protocol described today overcomes key technological challenges that kept our discovery from real-world use,” says Alexey Terskikh, Ph.D., an associate professor in Sanford Burnham Prebys’ Development, Aging and Regeneration Program and the co-founder and chief scientific officer of Stemson Therapeutics. “Now we have a robust, highly controlled method for generating natural-looking hair that grows through the skin using an unlimited source of human iPSC-derived dermal papilla cells. This is a critical breakthrough in the development of cell-based hair-loss therapies and the regenerative medicine field.”
An all-star panel of experts in nutritional studies with an emphasis on longevity. At some point in your life, you have heard the following. “Eat the right food. It will help you live longer.” What if I told you the right food could help you heal as well. This panel of longevity driven nutritionist will give you a broad range of fact-based regiments and compelling individual opinions on Nutrition and longevity. This segment will cover many diverse understandable methods that can make a change in longevity for you or your loved ones. Fill yourself with the knowledge of proper nutrition for longevity.
Speakers Will Include: Brian Clement – Plant-Based & founder of “Hippocrates Health Institute” A typical American growing up in the New Jersey/New York area, Brian likes to joke that he was a pioneer in the field of obesity—he was fat even before many Americans were fat! Raised in an Irish household on the standard American diet of meat, processed foods, and sugary sodas, he was unfit and gasping for air every few steps. When he was 20 years old, he was dating a girl whose best friend’s boyfriend was 30—and a vegetarian. Despite the fact he had been more or less educated by his family that the body would die without animal-based foods, the lure of an influential peer inspired him to give up meat in one fell swoop. For the first year and a half, he kept his vegetarian diet a secret from his family. Yet after losing 120 pounds and experiencing the difference in his health, he came out of the proverbial closet (much to his family’s dismay!) and became a complete vegan three years later.
Wendi Blum – Founder of “Founder of Create Your Best Life” Wendi Blum worked in the pharmaceutical industry for over 20 years until (at age 45) felt a calling to completely change every aspect of her life. After two decades in a successful sales career (having worked for Zenecca Pharmaceuticals, PDI and Bristol Myers Squibb, wearing many different hats including advocacy, sales, and training) Wendi decided to re-write the story of her life literally and become an international inspirational speaker, author, workshop leader, success coach, and life-shift retreat guru. She is the author of 5 books – known for her focus on reinvention, goal mastery, and business savvy – she is known as “the queen of reinvention” Her titles include: “Your Life, Your Destiny, Uncover Yours, LifeShift” and “Goals Setting Workbook: Success Strategies for The New Economy” – and many more. Blum is known for her blend of Spiritual flare with business savvy” because of how she merges these two powerful components together.
Bill Faloon — Director and Co-founder of the “Life Extension Foundation”.
Bill Faloon compiled the 1,500-page medical reference book Disease Prevention and Treatment, and his latest book is Pharmocracy: How Corrupt Deals and Misguided Medical Regulations Are Bankrupting America—and What to Do About It. He is also director and co-founder of the Life Extension Foundation, a consumer advocacy organization that funds research and disseminates information to consumers about optimal health. Mr. Faloon has made hundreds of media appearances, including guest spots on The Phil Donohue Show, Tony Brown’s Journal, and ABC News Day One, and has been interviewed Newsweek and other magazines.
There are certain enzymes — proteins — plaques that help cause Alzheimer’s, just recently in fact {which I as most could have told them} the gut microbes and mouth microbes are found to assist in Dementia and Alzheimers. But I and Hippocrates as others have been declaring that fact for quite some time… Respect AEWR wherein the amazing gathered data of mankind has yielded the many causes and a cure for aging…
For decades, research into Alzheimer’s has made slow progress, but now a mother and daughter team think they have finally found a solution – a vaccine that could inoculate potential sufferers.
