A fast-onset, in vivo CRISPR screening platform that facilitates functional genomics with single-cell resolution in embryonic and adult animal brains as well as in peripheral nervous systems is presented.
I have recently read the report from Sharad Agarwal, and here are my outcomes by adding some examples:
Transhumanism is the concept of transcending humanity’s fundamental limitations through advances in science and technology. This intellectual movement advocates for enhancing human physical, cognitive, and ethical capabilities, foreseeing a future where technological advancements will profoundly modify and improve human biology.
Consider transhumanism to be a kind of upgrade to your smartphone. Transhumanism, like updating our phones with the latest software to improve their capabilities and fix problems, seeks to use technological breakthroughs to increase human capacities. This could include strengthening our physical capacities to make us stronger or more resilient, improving our cognitive capabilities to improve memory or intelligence, or even fine-tuning moral judgments. Transhumanism, like phone upgrades, aspires to maximize efficiency and effectiveness by elevating the human condition beyond its inherent bounds.
Summary: A recent study suggests that consciousness evolved not for individual survival, but for social purposes, helping humans communicate ideas and emotions. Researchers argue that intuition heavily influences our understanding of consciousness, complicating scientific explanations.
The study emphasizes that while subjective awareness lacks causal influence, it remains crucial in social contexts. This perspective challenges traditional views, suggesting that consciousness benefits the species as a whole through social interactions.
Despite great progress, we lack even the beginning of an explanation of how the brain produces our inner world of colors, sounds, smells and tastes. A thought experiment with “pain-pleasure” zombies illustrates that the mystery is deeper than we thought.
By Philip Goff
Continue reading “The Mystery of Consciousness Is Deeper Than We Thought” »
A study led by Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine in Japan has revealed a link between gut microbiota and Parkinson’s disease (PD). The researchers found a reduction in the gut bacteria of genes responsible for synthesizing the essential B vitamins B2 and B7. They also identified a relationship between the lack of these genes and low levels of agents that help maintain the integrity of the intestinal barrier. This barrier prevents toxins from entering the bloodstream, which causes the inflammation seen in PD. Their findings, published in npj Parkinson’s Disease, suggest that treatment with B vitamins to address these deficiencies can be used to treat PD.
PD is characterized by a variety of physical symptoms that hinder daily activities and mobility, such as shaking, slow movement, stiffness, and balance problems. While the frequency of PD may vary between different populations, it is estimated to affect approximately 1–2% of individuals aged 55 years or older.
Various physiological processes are heavily influenced by the microorganisms found in the gut, which are collectively known as gut microbiota. In ideal conditions, gut microbiota produce SCFAs and polyamines, which maintain the intestinal barrier that prevents toxins entering the bloodstream. Toxins in the blood can be carried to the brain where they cause inflammation and affect neurotransmission processes that are critical for maintaining mental health.
“Mind uploading speculation and debate often concludes that a procedure described as gradual in-place replacement preserves personal identity while a procedure described as destructive scan-and-copy produces some other identity in the target substrate such that personal identity is lost along with the biological brain. This paper demonstrates a chain of reasoning that establishes metaphysical equivalence between these two methods in terms of preserving personal identity.” — Keith Wiley https://keithwiley.com https://www.brainpreservation.org/tea… thanks for tuning in! Please support SciFuture by subscribing and sharing! Have any ideas about people to interview? Want to be notified about future events? Any comments about the STF series? Please fill out this form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1mr9P… Kind regards, Adam Ford — Science, Technology & the Future — #SciFuture — http://scifuture.org
Daniel Dennett is one of the most influential philosophers in the world. He is an atheist, Darwinist and materialist. For him, we humans are nothing but a complex piece of matter subject to natural laws. He talks to Yves Bossart about our consciousness, illusions, freedom and faith.
German version: • Daniel Dennett im Gespräch über Geist…
More of the series: • 🌍 Videos in anderen Sprachen.
What makes one a person or a self? If he or she sees, hears, thinks and feels, is that a person or a self? How can separate perceptions bind together into a coherent mental unity of a single person or self?
For all of our video interviews please visit us at www.closertotruth.com
One of the variables in TD algorithms is called reward prediction error (RPE), which is the difference between the discounted predicted reward at the current state and the discounted predicted reward plus the actual reward at the next state. TD learning theory gained traction in neuroscience once it was demonstrated that firing patterns of dopaminergic neurons in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) during reinforcement learning resemble RPE5,9,10.
Implementations of TD using computer algorithms are straightforward, but are more complex when they are mapped onto plausible neural machinery11,12,13. Current implementations of neural TD assume a set of temporal basis-functions13,14, which are activated by external cues. For this assumption to hold, each possible external cue must activate a separate set of basis-functions, and these basis-functions must tile all possible learnable intervals between stimulus and reward.
In this paper, we argue that these assumptions are unscalable and therefore implausible from a fundamental conceptual level, and demonstrate that some predictions of such algorithms are inconsistent with various established experimental results. Instead, we propose that temporal basis functions used by the brain are themselves learned. We call this theoretical framework: Flexibly Learned Errors in Expected Reward, or FLEX for short. We also propose a biophysically plausible implementation of FLEX, as a proof-of-concept model. We show that key predictions of this model are consistent with actual experimental results but are inconsistent with some key predictions of the TD theory.
Can you pass me the whatchamacallit? It’s right over there next to the thingamajig.
Many of us will experience “lethologica”, or difficulty finding words, in everyday life. And it usually becomes more prominent with age.
Continue reading “Scientists Identify a Speech Trait That Foreshadows Cognitive Decline” »
