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Category: neuroscience – Page 301

People may be more than two times likelier to develop schizophrenia-related disorders if they owned cats during childhood than if they didn’t:

Living with cats as a child has once again been linked to mental health disorders, because our furry friends apparently can’t catch a break.

In a new meta-analysis published in the journal Schizophrenia Bulletin, Australian researchers identified 17 studies between 1980 and 2023 that seemed to associate cat ownership in childhood with schizophrenia-related disorders — a sample size narrowed down from a whopping 1,915 studies that dealt with cats during that 43-year time period.

As anyone who’s read anything about cats and mental health knows, there is a growing body of evidence suggesting that infection from the Toxoplasma gondii parasite, which is found in cat feces and undercooked red meat, may be linked to all sorts of surprising things. From mental illness to an interest in BDSM or a propensity for car crashes, toxoplasmosis — that’s the infection that comes from t. gondii exposure — has been thought of as a massive risk factor for decades now, which is why doctors now advise pregnant people not to clean cat litter or eat undercooked meat.

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😀 Amazing breakthrough face_with_colon_three

A group of Spanish researchers have developed a brain-computer interface based on electroencephalograms that allowed a group of 22 users to play a simple multiplayer game. The interface was 94% accurate in translating players’ thoughts into game moves, with each move taking just over 5 seconds. The study was published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.

A brain-computer interface is a technology that enables direct communication between the human brain and external devices, such as computers or prosthetic limbs. Brain-computer interfaces work by detecting and interpreting neural signals, typically through electrodes placed on the user’s head. These signals are then translated into actionable commands, allowing individuals to control computers, devices, or applications using their thoughts.

Brain-computer interfaces offer significant potential in medicine, from helping paralyzed individuals regain environmental control to treating neurological disorders. However, their broader adoption is hindered by challenges in accuracy and the extended time required to interpret brain signals.

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Introduction and objective: Video games are crucial to the entertainment industry, nonetheless they can be challenging to access for those with severe motor disabilities. Brain-computer interfaces (BCI) systems have the potential to help these individuals by allowing them to control video games using their brain signals. Furthermore, multiplayer BCI-based video games may provide valuable insights into how competitiveness or motivation affects the control of these interfaces. Despite the recent advancement in the development of code-modulated visual evoked potentials (c-VEPs) as control signals for high-performance BCIs, to the best of our knowledge, no studies have been conducted to develop a BCI-driven video game utilizing c-VEPs. However, c-VEPs could enhance user experience as an alternative method. Thus, the main goal of this work was to design, develop, and evaluate a version of the well-known ‘Connect 4’ video game using a c-VEP-based BCI, allowing 2 users to compete by aligning 4 same-colored coins vertically, horizontally or diagonally.

Methods: The proposed application consists of a multiplayer video game controlled by a real-time BCI system processing 2 electroencephalograms (EEGs) sequentially. To detect user intention, columns in which the coin can be placed was encoded with shifted versions of a pseudorandom binary code, following a traditional circular shifting c-VEP paradigm. To analyze the usability of our application, the experimental protocol comprised an evaluation session by 22 healthy users. Firstly, each user had to perform individual tasks. Afterward, users were matched and the application was used in competitive mode. This was done to assess the accuracy and speed of selection. On the other hand, qualitative data on satisfaction and usability were collected through questionnaires.

Results: The average accuracy achieved was 93.74% ± 1.71%, using 5.25 seconds per selection. The questionnaires showed that users felt a minimal workload. Likewise, high satisfaction values were obtained, highlighting that the application was intuitive and responds quickly and smoothly.

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Mini brains grown in a lab from stem cells spontaneously developed rudimentary eye structures, scientists reported in a fascinating paper in 2021.

On tiny, human-derived brain organoids grown in dishes, two bilaterally symmetrical optic cups were seen to grow, mirroring the development of eye structures in human embryos.

This incredible result will help us to better understand the process of eye differentiation and development, as well as eye diseases.

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A team of chemists, microbiologists and physicists at the University of Cambridge in the U.K. has developed a way to use solid-state nanopores and multiplexed DNA barcoding to identify misfolded proteins such as those involved in neurodegenerative disorders in blood samples. In their study, reported in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, the group used multiplexed DNA barcoding techniques to overcome problems with nanopore filtering techniques for isolating harmful oligomers.

Prior research has shown that the presence of harmful oligomers in the brain can lead to misfolding of proteins associated with neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease. Medical researchers have been looking for a way to detect them in the blood as a way to diagnose neurodegenerative disease and to track the progression once it has been confirmed.

Unfortunately, finding them in complex mixtures such as blood has proven to be a daunting task. One approach has shown promise—using sensors—but to date, they cannot track target oligomers as they speed through customizable solid-state nanopore sensors. In this new effort, the research team overcame this problem by using customizable DNA nanostructures.

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The prevailing scientific paradigm is that matter is primary and everything, including consciousness can be derived from the laws governing matter. Although the scientific explanation of consciousness on these lines has not been realized, in this view it is only a matter of time before consciousness will be explained through neurobiological activity in the brain, and nothing else. There is an alternative view that holds that it is fundamentally impossible to explain how subjectivity can arise solely out of material processes-“the hard problem of consciousness”-and instead consciousness should be regarded in itself as a primary force in nature. This view attempts to derive, for example, the laws of physics from models of consciousness, instead of the other way around. While as scientists we can understand and have an intuition for the first paradigm, it is very difficult to understand what “consciousness is primary” might mean since it has no intuitive scientific grounding. Here we show that worlds experienced through virtual reality (VR) are such that consciousness is a first order phenomenon. We discuss the Interface Theory of Perception which claims that in physical reality perceptions are not veridical and that we do not see the “truth” but that perception is based on evolutionary payoffs. We show that this theory may provide an accurate description of perception and consciousness within VR, and we put forward an experimental study that could throw light on this. We conclude that VR does offer an experimental frame that provides intuition with respect to the idea that “consciousness is first” and what this might mean regarding the perceived world. However, we do not draw any conclusions about the veracity of this notion with respect to physical reality or question the emergence of consciousness from brain function.

Keywords: consciousness; interface theory of perception; perception; presence; real vs. virtual; virtual reality.

Copyright © 2022 Slater and Sanchez-Vives.

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In a new study published in Scientific Reports, researchers have uncovered a phenomenon known as the “phantom touch illusion,” where individuals experience tactile sensations without actual physical contact in a virtual reality (VR) setting. This intriguing discovery raises questions about how the brain processes sensory information.

Previous research has shown that our nervous system can differentiate between self-generated touch and touch from external sources, a process often described as tactile gating. This ability helps us understand our interactions with the world around us.

When you perform an action that results in self-touch, your brain anticipates this contact. It knows that the sensation is a result of your own movement. Because of this anticipation, the brain ‘turns down the volume’ on the sensory response. Essentially, it partially “cancels” or gates out the sensation because it’s expected and self-generated. This is why you can’t effectively tickle yourself – your brain knows the touch is coming and reduces the response.

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Humans and other mammals can produce a wide range of sounds, while also modulating their volume and pitch. These sounds, also known as mammalian vocalizations, play a central role in communication between both animals of the same and of different species.

Researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine recently carried out a study aimed at better understanding the neural mechanisms underpinning the production and modulation of mammal vocalizations. Their paper, published in Nature Neuroscience, identifies a neural circuit and a set of genetically defined in the that play a key role in the production of .

“All mammals, including humans, vocalize by pushing air past the vocal cords of the larynx, which vibrate to produce sound,” Avin Veerakumar, co-author of the paper, told Medical Xpress.

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