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Archive for the ‘neuroscience’ category: Page 284

Apr 29, 2023

Researchers find rhythmic brain activity helps to maintain temporary memories

Posted by in category: neuroscience

New research shows that rhythmic brain activity is key to temporarily maintaining important information in memory. Researchers at the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience at the University of Rochester published these findings today in Current Biology that found brain rhythms—or patterns of neuronal activity—organize the bursts of activity in the brain that maintain short-term connections.

“The thought has been that the temporary storage of important information is linked to neurons in the brain that just fire away, retaining that information until it is no longer needed. Recent research has shown that it might not be such persistent that matters most for the temporary storage of information, but rather a short-term strengthening of the connections between neurons that are representing the information. Our research shows that are organizing these transient bursts over time,” said Ian Fiebelkorn, Ph.D., assistant professor of Neuroscience and senior author of the study.

“The rhythmic coordination of brain activity over time is important because it allows overlapping populations of neurons to store different pieces of information at the same time.”

Apr 29, 2023

Is Memory a Virus? How Retroviruses Shaped the Human Mind

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, neuroscience

All land animals have an Arc gene in their brain. This gene serves as the “master regulator” that determines how neuronal synapses (i.e., neuronal connections) form in the brain.

Two independent research groups [1, 2] have published their findings in the prestigious academic journal, Cell, in 2018 — showing that Arc behaves like viruses and has ancestral roots in retroviruses.

In a sense, the Arc gene moulds and sculpts the brain connections — forming the mind — making amphibians think like amphibians, birds like birds, reptiles like reptiles, monkeys like monkeys, and humans like humans.

Apr 29, 2023

Audio long read: Conquering Alzheimer’s — a look at the therapies of the future

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, neuroscience

Listen to an audio version of a recent Nature feature.

Apr 29, 2023

Elderly people can improve episodic memory via neurostimulation of the cerebellum, shows study

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension, neuroscience

A recent study demonstrated that non-invasive stimulation of the right cerebellum led to improvements in episodic memory performance in healthy elderly individuals, at the end of a 12-day neurostimulation program, and also at the point of a 4-month follow-up.

The steady increase in average life expectancy poses significant challenges to individuals, families, and societies across multiple dimensions. Estimating that by 2050 one in every six individuals will be over the age of 65, the study of aging and its association with , and overall frailty is becoming increasingly important.

Therefore, it has been an important goals of neurosciences research to understand the relationship between the and deficits and to develop interventions to mitigate the in our ability to remember personal past events (episodic memory).

Apr 29, 2023

The Neuroscience of Real Life Monsters: Psychopaths, CEOs, & Politicians (Science on Tap Livestream)

Posted by in categories: biological, ethics, genetics, neuroscience, science

Why do some people live lawful lives, while others gravitate toward repeated criminal behavior? Do people choose to be moral or immoral, or is morality simply a genetically inherited function of the brain? Research suggests that psychopathy as a biological condition explained by defective neural circuits that mediate empathy, but what does that mean when neuroscience is used as evidence in criminal court? How can understanding neuroscience give us an insight into the actions and behaviors of our political leaders?

Forensic psychiatrist Dr. Octavio Choi https://med.stanford.edu/profiles/ochoi will explore how emerging neuroscience challenges long-held assumptions underlying the basis—and punishment—of criminal behavior.

Continue reading “The Neuroscience of Real Life Monsters: Psychopaths, CEOs, & Politicians (Science on Tap Livestream)” »

Apr 29, 2023

Children and Adults Process Social Interactions Differently: Study Reveals Key Differences in Brain Activation

Posted by in category: neuroscience

Lead author Jon Walbrin explains, “Most previous social neuroscience studies have focused on measuring responses to other people as individuals. But more recently there has been an increased interest in understanding brain responses to others in the context of social interactions. However, very little is currently known about how such responses develop during childhood.”

“These results suggest that children and adults might employ different strategies for interaction understanding: Adults rely more on observable, body-based information, while children—with less social experience—engage more in effortful reasoning about what others are thinking and feeling during an interaction. This likely reflects the process of learning to understand interactive behavior.”

Apr 29, 2023

Structured exploration allows biological brains to learn faster than AI, suggests study

Posted by in categories: biological, neuroscience, robotics/AI

Neuroscientists have uncovered how exploratory actions enable animals to learn their spatial environment more efficiently. Their findings could help build better AI agents that can learn faster and require less experience.

Researchers at the Sainsbury Wellcome Center and Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit at UCL found the instinctual exploratory runs that animals carry out are not random. These purposeful actions allow mice to learn a map of the world efficiently. The study, published today, April 28, in Neuron, describes how neuroscientists tested their hypothesis that the specific exploratory actions that animals undertake, such as darting quickly towards objects, are important in helping them learn how to navigate their environment.

“There are a lot of theories in psychology about how performing certain actions facilitates learning. In this study, we tested whether simply observing obstacles in an environment was enough to learn about them, or if purposeful, sensory-guided actions help animals build a cognitive map of the world,” said Professor Tiago Branco, Group Leader at the Sainsbury Wellcome Center and corresponding author on the paper.

Apr 29, 2023

Time Perception & Entrainment

Posted by in categories: chemistry, neuroscience, time travel

In this episode, I discuss how our brain and body track time and the role that neurochemicals, in particular dopamine and serotonin, but also hormones such as melatonin, allow us to orient ourselves in time. I review the three types of time perception: of the past, of the present, and the future, and how dopamine and serotonin adjust both our perception of the speed of the passage of time and our memory of how long previous experiences lasted. I also discuss circannual entrainment, which is the process by which our brain and body are matched to the seasons, and circadian (24 hours) entrainment, both of which subconsciously adjust our perceived measurement of time. I explain the mechanisms of that subconscious control. And I cover the ultradian (90 minutes) rhythms that govern our ability to focus, including how to track when these 90-minute rhythms begin and end for the sake of work and productivity. I include ten tools based on the science of time perception that you can apply to enhance productivity, creativity, and relationships in various contexts.

Thank you to our sponsors:
ROKA — https://www.roka.com — code “huberman“
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Continue reading “Time Perception & Entrainment” »

Apr 29, 2023

Newly discovered electrical activity within cells could change the way researchers think about biological chemistry

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, chemistry, neuroscience

The human body relies heavily on electrical charges. Lightning-like pulses of energy fly through the brain and nerves and most biological processes depend on electrical ions traveling across the membranes of each cell in our body.

These are possible, in part, because of an imbalance in electrical charges that exists on either side of a cellular membrane. Until recently, researchers believed the membrane was an essential component to creating this imbalance. But that thought was turned on its head when researchers at Stanford University discovered that similar imbalanced electrical charges can exist between microdroplets of water and air.

Now, researchers at Duke University have discovered that these types of electric fields also exist within and around another type of cellular structure called biological condensates. Like oil droplets floating in water, these structures exist because of differences in density. They form compartments inside the cell without needing the physical boundary of a membrane.

Apr 28, 2023

The sapient paradox: With brains like ours, why did prehistoric humans wait millennia to start civilization?

Posted by in category: neuroscience

Neuroscientists and archeologists have wrestled with the Sapient Paradox for decades. Can collective learning be the solution?

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