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Category: neuroscience

Now, from the wild side.

Quantum Theory Proves Consciousness Moves To Another Universe After Death. There is an interesting new theory emerging from a scientist long familiar with physics, quantum mechanics and astrophysics. Biocentrism teaches that life and consciousness are fundamental to the universe. It is consciousness that creates the material universe, not the other way around. At least, the new thinking that has given birth to the new theory of biocentrism, which the professor, Dr. Robert Lanza, freely espouses. Lana has been voted the 3rd most important scientist alive by the NY Times. Lanza is an expert in regenerative medicine and scientific director of Advanced Cell Technology Company. Before he has been known for his extensive research which dealt with stem cells, he was also famous for several successful experiments on cloning endangered animal species. Biocentrism—is a concept proposed in 2007 by American doctor of medicine Robert Lanza, a scientist in the fields of regenerative medicine and biology, which sees biology as the central driving science in the universe, and an understanding of the other sciences as reliant on a deeper understanding of biology. Biocentrism states that life and biology are central to being, reality, and the cosmos—consciousness creates the universe rather than the other way around. It asserts that current theories of the physical world do not work, and can never be made to work, until they fully account for life and consciousness. While physics is considered fundamental to the study of the universe, and chemistry fundamental to the study of life, biocentrism claims that scientists will need to place biology before the other sciences to produce a theory of everything.

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A blue light shines through a transparent, implantable medical sensor onto a brain. The invention may help neural researchers better view brain activity. (credit: Justin Williams research group)

In an open-access paper published Thursday (Oct. 13, 2016) in the journal Nature Protocols, University of Wisconsin–Madison engineers have published details of how to fabricate and use neural microelectrocorticography (μECoG) arrays made with transparent graphene in applications in electrophysiology, fluorescent microscopy, optical coherence tomography, and optogenetics.

Graphene is one of the most promising candidates for transparent neural electrodes, because the material has a UV to IR transparency of more than 90%, in addition to its high electrical and thermal conductivity, flexibility, and biocompatibility, the researchers note in the paper. That allows for simultaneous high-resolution imaging and optogenetic control.

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More on that “Quantum State of Mind”.

Collective Evolution: Lanza’s theory implies that if the body generates consciousness, then consciousness dies when the body dies. But if the body receives consciousness in the same way that a cable box receives satellite signals, then of course consciousness does not end at the death of the physical vehicle. This is an example that’s commonly used to describe the enigma of consciousness.

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Researchers have discovered a link between a protein and aging

A protein found within the powerhouse of a cell could be the key to holding back the march of time, research by scientists at The University of Nottingham has shown and the discovery could offer a new target for drugs that may help to slow the debilitating effects of ageing on our bodies.

Their research, published in the academic journal Aging, could have special significance for combatting age related decline and halting the progression of neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Disease.

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Could this finally help suppress and maybe even eliminate MS, Dystonia, Parkinson and other central nervous system disfunctions?

Last year, a team of Harvard University researchers revealed that they created a wire mesh doctors can inject into the brain to help treat Parkinson’s and other neurological diseases. They already successfully tested it on live mice, but now that technology is ready for the next stage: human testing. The mesh made of gold and polymers is so thin, it can coil inside a syringe’s needle and doesn’t need extensive surgery to insert. Once it’s inside your head, it merges with your brain, since the mesh has spaces where neurons can pass through.

A part of it needs to stick out through a small hole in your skull so it can be connected a computer. That connection is necessary to be able to monitor your brain activity and to deliver targeted electric jolts that can prevent neurons from dying off. By preventing the death of neurons, which triggers spasms and tremors, the device can be used to combat Parkinson’s and similar diseases. Eventually, the wire mesh could come with an implantable power supply and controls, eliminating the need to be linked to a computer.

The team believes their creation also has a future in mental health, since it can deliver a more targeted treatment for conditions like depression and schizophrenia than medications can. They’ll definitely find out more once human trials begin, and it sounds like it could take place in the near future. According to MIT’s Technology Review, the researchers have begun working with doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital and will soon perform experiments on patients with epilepsy.

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Watching millions of neurons in the brain interacting with each other is the ultimate dream of neuroscientists! A new imaging method now makes it possible to observe the activation of large neural circuits, currently up to the size of a small-animal brain, in real time and three dimensions. Researchers at the Helmholtz Zentrum München and the Technical University of Munich have recently reported on their new findings in Nature’s journal ‘Light: Science & Applications’.

Nowadays it is well recognized that most brain functions may not be comprehended through inspection of single neurons. To advance meaningfully, neuroscientists need the ability to monitor the activity of millions of neurons, both individually and collectively. However, such observations were so far not possible due to the limited penetration depth of optical microscopy techniques into a living brain.

A team headed by Prof. Dr. Daniel Razansky, a group leader at the Institute of Biological and Molecular Imaging (IBMI), Helmholtz Zentrum München, and Professor of Molecular Imaging Engineering at the Technical University of Munich, has now found a way to address this challenge. The new method is based on the so-called optoacoustics*, which allows non-invasive interrogation of living tissues at centimeter scale depths.

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The nerves we feel before a stressful event—like speaking in public, for example—are normally kept in check by a complex system of circuits in our brain. Now, scientists at Rockefeller University have identified a key molecule within this circuitry that is responsible for relieving anxiety. Intriguingly, it doesn’t appear to reduce anxiety in female mice, only in males.

“This is unusual, because the particular cell type involved here is the same in the male and female brain—same in number, same in appearance,” says Nathaniel Heintz, head of the Laboratory of Molecular Biology and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. “It’s a rare case where a single cell type is activated by the same stimulus but yields two different behaviors in each gender.”

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