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Category: neuroscience

This amazing! I see so many uses both in medical/ healthcare as well as advancing the work in tech around brain sensory and mapping.

Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between science and technology ó almost all the time when it has to do with the brain. But this research from MIT that allows for vastly improved scans of the networks inside the brain is too cool to pass up, whether it’s tech, science, or somewhere in between.

Getting up close and personal with neurons and other brain cells is a science that people have been working on for a century and more. Mainly the problem is that they’re so darn small, and packed so tightly, and connect in so many places at once, that it’s hard to tell where anything’s going. We have ways of imaging the brain at various levels, but each is highly limited in its own way.

This new technique addresses several of the main problems. It’s called magnified analysis of proteome, or (conveniently) MAP. The summary from lead researcher Kwanghun Chung makes it sound almost too good to be true.

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New research sheds light on what’s going on inside our heads as we decide whether to take a risk or play it safe. Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis located a region of the brain involved in decisions made under conditions of uncertainty, and identified some of the cells involved in the decision-making process.

The work, published July 27 in The Journal of Neuroscience, could lead to treatments for psychological and psychiatric disorders that involve misjudging risk, such as problem gambling and anxiety disorders.

“We know from human imaging studies that certain parts of the brain are more or less active in risk-seeking people, but the neural circuits involved are largely unknown,” said Ilya Monosov, PhD, an assistant professor of neuroscience and senior author on the study. “We found a population of value-coding neurons that are specifically suppressed when animals make a risky choice.”

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Studies are showing that anatomical patterning found in the brain’s cortex may be controlled by genetic factors.

The highly consistent anatomical patterning found in the brain’s cortex is controlled by genetic factors, reports a new study by an international research consortium led by Chi-Hua Chen of the University of California, San Diego, and Nicholas Schork of the J. Craig Venter Institute, published on July 26 in PLOS Genetics.

The human brain’s wrinkled cerebral cortex, which is responsible for consciousness, memory, language and thought, has a highly similar organizational pattern in all individuals. The similarity suggests that genetic factors may create this pattern, but currently the extent of the role of these factors is unknown. To determine whether a consistent and biologically meaningful pattern in the cortex could be identified, the scientists assessed brain images and genetic information from 2,364 unrelated individuals, brain images from 466 twin pairs, and transcriptome data from six postmortem brains.

They identified very consistent patterns, with close genetic relationships between different regions within the same brain lobe. The frontal lobe, which has the most complexity and has experienced the greatest expansion throughout the brain’s evolution, is the most genetically distinct from the other lobes. Their results also suggest potential functional relationships among different cortical brain regions.

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Ever really wanted to know what folks truly are thinking about?

A new experiment advances the idea that brain scans can teach us something about how the human mind works.

By Nathan Collins

Mind reading stands as one of science fiction’s most enduring improbabilities, alongside light-speed space travel and laser guns. But unlike those latter two, mind reading actually has a whiff of reality: In a new demonstration, psychologists have shown they can figure out how far along someone’s brain is in the process of solving a sophisticated math problem—a result that, more than anything else, indicates the promise of new brain-scanning techniques for understanding the human mind.

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On the path towards Singularity — I believe that this is an individual choice. However, to remain relevant and competitive in industry we may see a day when folks will require this type of enhancement to compete, perform in military operations, etc.

The researchers carried out a survey of more than 4,700 US adults.

The survey asked the public on views of gene editing, implantation of brain chips, and transfusions of synthetic blood.

More said they would not want enhancements of their brains and their blood: 66 per cent and 63 per cent, respectively, than said they would want them — 32 per cent and 35 per cent.

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The public was unenthusiastic on all counts, even about protecting babies from disease.

Americans aren’t very enthusiastic about using science to enhance the human species. Instead, many find it rather creepy.

A new survey by the Pew Research Center shows a profound distrust of scientists, a suspicion about claims of progress and a real discomfort with the idea of meddling with human abilities. The survey also opens a window into the public’s views on what it means to be a human being and what values are important.

Pew asked about three techniques that might emerge in the future but that are not even close to ready now: using gene editing to protect babies from disease, implanting chips in the brain to improve people’s ability to think, and transfusing synthetic blood that would enhance performance by increasing speed, strength and endurance.

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Interesting article on toddler memories. I was actually speaking with my mother on Sat. and shared with her 3 distinct memories that I had before age 3. One in the crib seeing my grandmother, second was my first rocking horse, and 3rd was 2 pet birds.

She (my mom) thought that I would have remember building a step staircase out of my grandmother’s drawers of her 6ft chest, and climbed up to sit on top of the chest so that I could throw down my grandmother’s powder on the floor. They saw a cloud of smoke from the powder coming out of the room; and found me.

Just sharing because I am always amazed at how brain sensory and memories work.

If you’re like me, you probably don’t remember anything from your life before the age of three. This phenomenon, first dubbed by Sigmund Freud as “infantile amnesia,” occurs in many different species, yet why it happens remains a mystery.

Freud (being Freud) pinned the culprit on sex: those early memories are actively repressed because of their highly charged psychosexual context. This idea is now “actively repressed” by modern scientists, who instead point to quirks in the developing brain as the root of toddler forgetfulness. Some believe that the young brain has not yet mastered the ability to store memories. Others think the rapid reorganization of the developing brain quickly overwrites what’s already been written.

baby-memories-brain-learning-3

These modern theories rely on the same assumption: that our baby memories are erased. But what if Freud was right about the mechanism (if not the reason)—and these memories are simply repressed, waiting for the right cue to become active again? Can the things you don’t remember as a child shape the person you become as an adult?

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