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Summary: A new study challenges the long-held belief that the striatum is responsible for selecting actions. Researchers found that instead of making decisions, the striatum and motor cortex work together to specify movement details, such as how to reach for an object.
Using a novel “reach-to-pull” system, they recorded neural activity in mice and found that both regions were active during movement execution, not decision-making. These findings could reshape our understanding of motor control and help improve treatments for movement disorders like Parkinson’s and Huntington’s disease.
Slides here: http://bit.ly/MZMmdp — Whole Brain Emulation & Computational Neuroscience Synopsis Within a few decades, I believe it will be possible to construct working simulations of an entire human brain. In this talk I will explain why I believe this, with reference to recent work in Computational Neuroscience, extrapolations of Moore’s Law, and other such matters. I will also address some common criticisms leveled against whole brain emulation, and briefly discuss some of the many ways I believe this technology will drastically change the face of society in the near future.
I’ll basically be presenting selected material from this publication, with some updates and additions of my own.
http://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/brain-emulation-roadmap-report.pdf.
Science, Technology & the Future — By Design.
Summary: Scientists have developed e-Taste, a novel technology that digitally replicates taste in virtual environments. Using chemical sensors and wireless dispensers, the system captures and transmits taste data remotely, enabling users to experience sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami flavors.
In tests, participants distinguished different taste intensities with 70% accuracy, and remote tasting was successfully initiated across long distances. Beyond gaming and immersive experiences, this breakthrough could enhance accessibility for individuals with sensory impairments and deepen our understanding of how the brain processes taste.
Posted in biotech/medical, engineering, genetics, neuroscience | Leave a Comment on Apertura Gene Therapy Supports the Broad Institute in Development of Gene Therapy for Prion Disease Using Engineered AAV Capsid Targeting TfR1 for CNS Delivery
Two remarkable innovations coming together to tackle prion disease: AAVs that leverage human receptors to cross the blood-brain-barrier + a way of epigenetically silencing the gene encoding prions. I recall reading those cited papers and both are amazing!
BOSTON and NEW YORK, Feb. 28, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Apertura Gene Therapy, a biotechnology company focused on innovative gene therapy solutions, supports the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and the Whitehead Institute in advancing a gene therapy approach for the treatment of prion disease. The project is led by the Vallabh-Minikel lab at the Broad Institute which is focused on finding a cure for prion disease, and their approach leverages two cutting-edge technologies developed at the Institutes of both the Broad and Whitehead: the CHARM platform designed in Dr. Jonathan Weismann’s lab, and TfR1 capsid, an engineered AAV designed in the lab of Dr. Ben Deverman, Director of Vector Engineering at the Broad Institute and scientific founder of Apertura.
Prion disease is a rare, fatal, neurodegenerative disorder caused by misfolded proteins. The new gene therapy aims to address the root cause by using CHARM (Coupled Histone tail for Autoinhibition Release of Methyltransferase) to target and silence the gene that codes for the disease-causing protein1. This payload will be combined with Apertura’s TfR1 capsid, an adeno-associated virus (AAV) capsid engineered to efficiently cross the blood-brain barrier by binding to the human TfR1 receptor, which facilitates iron transport into brain cells2. Together, these technologies represent a transformative approach to tackling CNS diseases.
“We are thrilled to see the progress being made in the development of this innovative therapy for prion disease,” said Dr. Sonia Vallabh, co-leader of the group at the Broad working on preventative therapies for prion disease. “The collaborative efforts between Apertura, the Broad Institute and the Whitehead mark a significant milestone toward addressing unmet needs in neurodegenerative disorders.”
Khan, M.U., Hassan, B., Alazzam, A. et al. Brain inspired iontronic fluidic memristive and memcapacitive device for self-powered electronics. Microsyst Nanoeng 11, 37 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41378-025-00882-x.
The neural basis of affect sharing is not fully understood. Here, the authors show that the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) stably recruits neural ensembles encoding observational fear, specifically represented by affective responses to pain experience.
This is the prophesied follow-up to my fastpunch through humanism, covering some 20th century reactions to humanist thought. I hypothesize that we’re at something of a standoff between humanism and posthumanism, as our political and educational institutions are struggling to terms with changing technical contexts.
If you like the work there’s more at https://spoti.fi/3f0OIXD and / plasticpills.
Addendum: Sometimes posthumanism is confused with transhumanism, which I had planned to cover in this video but it was getting too long. Transhumanism is often humanistic in that it privileges the same capacities that humanism does–intellect, memory, progress, consciousness–and proposes that our bodies can be technologically or genetically augmented to improve these capacities in new stages of human develepment– uploading our consciousness into the cloud or staving off mortality. Posthumanists, by and large, tend to de-emphasize the supposed value of those ends in the first place, although there is some overlap.
Thanks for watching!
Sources Used:
Nietzsche’s Twilight of the Idols (https://amzn.to/37GFyw7) and Human, All Too Human (https://amzn.to/2OQsdbQ)
Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus (https://amzn.to/33l4AgP)
Bernard Stiegler, Technics and Time (https://amzn.to/2qQoJOF)
Donna Haraway (https://amzn.to/2pPVxqy)
Timecode:
MIT 6.868J The Society of Mind, Fall 2011
View the complete course: http://ocw.mit.edu/6-868JF11
Instructor: Marvin Minsky.
In this lecture, students discuss Barry Schwartz’s 2000 piece on the psychology of hope. They also look at ethical dilemmas for positive psychology, and who has the right to meddle with top-level goals or induce happiness.
License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
More information at http://ocw.mit.edu/terms.
More courses at http://ocw.mit.edu
Slippery proteins in the brain’s blood vessels form a protective barrier that breaks down with age, studies in mice show.
