A Yale-led study reveals that two types of neurodevelopmental abnormalities emerging early in brain development are linked to autism, with these differences influenced by brain size.
By using brain organoids derived from autistic children’s stem cells, researchers uncovered distinct neural growth patterns, potentially guiding personalized treatments and diagnoses.
Early Brain Development and Autism.
Posted in neuroscience
LLMs don’t just memorize word pairs or sequences—they learn to encode abstract representations of language. These models are trained on immense amounts of text data, allowing them to infer relationships between words, phrases, and concepts in ways that extend beyond mere surface-level patterns. This is why LLMs can handle diverse contexts, respond to novel prompts, and even generate creative outputs.
In this sense, LLMs are performing a kind of machine inference. They compress linguistic information into abstract representations that allow them to generalize across contexts—similar to how the hippocampus compresses sensory and experiential data into abstract rules or principles that guide human thought.
But can LLMs really achieve the same level of inference as the human brain? Here, the gap becomes more apparent. While LLMs are impressive at predicting the next word in a sequence and generating text that often appears to be the product of thoughtful inference, their ability to truly understand or infer abstract concepts is still limited. LLMs operate on correlations and patterns rather than understanding the underlying causality or relational depth that drives human inference.
LLMs are reshaping how we think by fostering deeper, sustained engagement and metacognition, potentially transforming our cognitive abilities.
LLMs can open new doors to cognitive and perhaps even conscious expansion, influencing how we experience and interpret the world.
Discover how cognitive connectivity, powered by LLMs, ignites creativity, fuels joyful curiosity, and transforms the way we think and learn, in the emerging Cognitive Age.
I don’t know what’s causing the sound problem my apologies.
Randal and Keith discuss WBE, Mind Uploading and fascinating tangents in neuroscience and neuroprosthetics and pathways for the future, as well as the Carbon Copies foundation and the new book ‘Contemplating Oblivion’ by Keith Wiley.
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Join Randal Koene, a computational neuroscientist, as he dives into the intricate world of whole brain emulation and mind uploading, while touching on the ethical pillars of AI. In this episode, Koene discusses the importance of equal access to AI, data ownership, and the ethical impact of AI development. He explains the potential future of AGI, how current social and political systems might influence it, and touches on the scientific and philosophical aspects of creating a substrate-independent mind. Koene also elaborates on the differences between human cognition and artificial neural networks, the challenge of translating brain structure to function, and efforts to accelerate neuroscience research through structured challenges.
00:00 Introduction to Randal Koene and Whole Brain Emulation.
00:39 Ethical Considerations in AI Development.
02:20 Challenges of Equal Access and Data Ownership.
03:40 Impact of AGI on Society and Development.
05:58 Understanding Mind Uploading.
06:39 Randall’s Journey into Computational Neuroscience.
08:14 Scientific and Philosophical Aspects of Substrate Independent Minds.
13:07 Brain Function and Memory Processes.
25:34 Whole Brain Emulation: Current Techniques and Challenges.
32:12 The Future of Neuroscience and AI Collaboration.
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Have you ever wondered what it would be like to upload your mind to a computer? To have a digital copy of your personality, memories, and skills that could live on after your biological death? This is the idea behind whole brain emulation, a hypothetical process of scanning a brain and creating a software version of it that can run on any compatible hardware. In this video, we will explore the science and challenges of whole brain emulation, the ethical and social implications of creating digital minds, and the potential benefits and risks of this technology for humanity. Join us as we dive into the fascinating world of whole-brain emulation!
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#minduploading.
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Among the many ways neuroscientists think Alzheimer’s disease may strip away brain function is by disrupting the glucose metabolism needed to fuel the healthy brain. In essence, declining metabolism robs the brain of energy, impairing thinking and memory.
Against that backdrop, a team of neuroscientists at the Knight Initiative for Brain Resilience at Stanford’s Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute have zeroed in on a critical regulator of brain metabolism known as the kynurenine pathway. They hypothesize that that the kynurenine pathway is over-activated as a result of amyloid plaque and tau proteins that accumulate in the brains of patients with Alzheimer’s disease.
Now, with support from research and training grants from the Knight Initiative, they have shown that by blocking the kynurenine pathway in lab mice with Alzheimer’s Disease, they can improve, or even restore, cognitive function by reinstating healthy brain metabolism.
