Mr Arbaugh said that the device has given him the ability to have nearly full control over using a computer, using only his thoughts.
Category: neuroscience – Page 265
Daniel Dennett: ‘Where Am I?’
Dennett’s classic story raises deep philosophical questions about identity and consciousness.
Tuberous Sclerosis
Tuberous sclerosis is a rare genetic disease that causes benign tumors to grow in the brain and other organs. The disease can be mild, or it can cause severe disabilities. Tuberous sclerosis has no cure, but treatments can help symptoms. More info here.
Tuberous sclerosis (TSC) is a rare genetic disease. It causes benign tumors in the brain and other organs. Learn about symptoms and what can help.
Frozen human brain tissue works perfectly when thawed 18 months later
In good news for future animation figureheads, there might be a new way to revive frozen brains without damaging them. Scientists in China have developed a new chemical concoction that lets brain tissue function again after being frozen.
Freezing is effective at keeping organic material from decomposing, but it still causes damage. As the water inside turns to ice, the crystals tear apart the cells. That’s why frozen meat or fruit goes a bit mushy after it’s defrosted – but a bigger problem is that it also happens with organs or tissues chilled for transplant or research.
For the new study, scientists at Fudan University in China experimented with various chemical compounds to see which ones might work to preserve living brain tissue during freezing. They started by testing out promising chemicals on brain organoids – small, lab-grown lumps of brain tissue that develop into different types of related cells.
Ed Boyden: Let’s Bring Engineers into Studying the Brain
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I met Prof. Ed Boyden at last year’s Global Future 2045 conference in New York. There I was highly impressed with Boyden’s impressive work in neuroscience in general and optogenetics in particular, as well as the profound implications it would have on our ability to understand and manipulate the brain. And so I knew instantly I must bring him for an interview.
Google and Harvard Map a Tiny Piece of the Human Brain With Extreme Precision
Scientists just published the most detailed map of a cubic millimeter of the human brain. Smaller than a grain of rice, the mapped section of brain includes over 57,000 cells, 230 millimeters of blood vessels, and 150 million synapses.
The project, a collaboration between Harvard and Google, is looking to accelerate connectomics—the study of how neurons are wired together—over a much larger scale.
Our brains are like a jungle.
Security Checks Reaching Towards Your Brain
When Descartes said “I think therefore I am” he probably didn’t know that he was answering a security question. Using behavioral or physical characteristics to identify people, biometrics, has gotten a big boost in the EU. The Orwellian sounding HUMABIO (Human Monitoring and Authentication using Biodynamic Indicators and Behavioral Analysis) is a well funded research project that seeks to combine sensor technology with the latest in biometrics to find reliable and non-obtrusive ways to identify people quickly. One of their proposed methods: scanning your brain stem. That’s right, in addition to reading your retinas, looking at your finger prints, and monitoring your voice, the security systems of the future may be scanning your brain.
How could they actually read your brain? What kind of patterns would they use to authenticate your identity? Yeah, that haven’t quite figured that out yet. HUMABIO is still definitely in the “pre-commercial” and “proof of concept” phase. They do have a nice ethics manual to read, and they’ve actually written some “stories” that illustrate the uses of their various works in progress, but they haven’t produced a fieldable instrument yet. In fact, this aspect of the STREP (Specific Targeted Research Project) would hardly be remarkable if we didn’t know more about the available technology from other sources.