Lifeboat Foundation

Summary: Oleic acid produced in the brain is an essential regulator of processes that enable memory, learning, and mood regulation. Oleic acid, which is abundant in olive oil, also promoted neurogenesis and increases cell proliferation.

Source: Baylor College of Medicine.

Many people dread experiencing the cognitive and mood declines that often accompany reaching an advanced age, including memory disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease and mood conditions like depression.

Surgically placed electrodes enable person with late-stage ALS to communicate via neural signals.

𝙇𝙤𝙪 𝙂𝙚𝙝𝙧𝙞𝙜’𝙨 𝙙𝙞𝙨𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙚—𝙖𝙢𝙮𝙤𝙩𝙧𝙤𝙥𝙝𝙞𝙘 𝙡𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙖𝙡 𝙨𝙘𝙡𝙚𝙧𝙤𝙨𝙞𝙨 (𝘼𝙇𝙎)—𝙞𝙨 𝙖 𝙣𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩𝙢𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙞𝙣 𝙞𝙩𝙨 𝙖𝙙𝙫𝙖𝙣𝙘𝙚𝙙 𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙢, 𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙫𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙥𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙨 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙖𝙣𝙮 𝙢𝙚𝙖𝙣𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙢𝙪𝙣𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧 𝙣𝙚𝙚𝙙𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙬𝙞𝙨𝙝𝙚𝙨. 𝘽𝙪𝙩 𝙖 𝙣𝙚𝙬 𝙗𝙧𝙖𝙞𝙣 𝙞𝙢𝙥𝙡𝙖𝙣𝙩 𝙝𝙖𝙨 𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙤𝙬𝙚𝙙 𝙖 34-𝙮𝙚𝙖𝙧-𝙤𝙡𝙙 𝙡𝙤𝙘𝙠𝙚𝙙-𝙞𝙣 𝘼𝙇𝙎 𝙥𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙩𝙤 𝙧𝙚𝙜𝙖𝙞𝙣 𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙖𝙗𝙞𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙮 𝙩𝙤 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙢𝙪𝙣𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙩𝙚 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙛𝙖𝙢𝙞𝙡𝙮 𝙖𝙣… See more.

The Neuro-Network.

𝐁𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐩𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐲 ‘𝐥𝐨𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐝-𝐢𝐧’ 𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐞

Continue reading “Brain implant helps completely ‘locked-in’ man communicate” »

Al Sandrock, the top scientist at Biogen who exited last year in a dispute over its controversial Alzheimer’s treatment, has landed a new job as the CEO of Voyager Therapeutics, the company said Tuesday.

Voyager’s appointment of Sandrock as its new CEO is the latest in a series of moves aimed at refocusing the company on a new gene therapy delivery technology, following setbacks with its earlier pipeline.

Years of toil in the laboratory have revealed how a marine bacterium makes a potent anti-cancer molecule.

The anti-cancer molecule salinosporamide A, also called Marizomb, is in Phase III clinical trials to treat glioblastoma, a brain cancer. Scientists now for the first time understand the enzyme-driven process that activates the molecule.

Researchers at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography found that an enzyme called SalC assembles what the team calls the salinosporamide anti-cancer “warhead.” Scripps graduate student Katherine Bauman is the lead author of a paper that explains the assembly process in the March 21 issue of Nature Chemical Biology.

It may not feel like it, but our eyes are constantly making rapid, tiny movements called saccades, taking in new information as we focus our gaze on various things in the world. As we do so, our brains receive the input – and depending on what the object of our gaze is, it turns out the brain activity triggered can be quite unique.

“While we typically do not perceive our own eye movements, the abrupt change in visual input with each saccade has substantial consequences at the neuronal level,” researchers explain in a new study led by first author and cognitive neuroscientist Tobias Staudigl from Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in Germany.

In an experiment, Staudigl and fellow researchers worked with 13 epilepsy patients, who had electrodes implanted in their brains to monitor their condition. This kind of intervention can be helpful for brain scientists, so they often turn to such patients with electrodes already implanted, in case they’d be willing to volunteer their time.

What is the next step toward bridging the gap between natural and artificial intelligence? Scientists and researchers are divided on the answer. Yann LeCun, Chief AI Scientist at Meta and the recipient of the 2018 Turing Award, is betting on self-supervised learning, machine learning models that can be trained without the need for human-labeled examples.

LeCun has been thinking and talking about self-supervised and unsupervised learning for years. But as his research and the fields of AI and neuroscience have progressed, his vision has converged around several promising concepts and trends.

In a recent event held by Meta AI, LeCun discussed possible paths toward human-level AI, challenges that remain and the impact of advances in AI.

Treating brain diseases is also always difficult because of something called the “blood-brain barrier.” This wall of cells is designed to prevent toxins and pathogens from getting from the blood into the brain — but it also makes it hard to get treatments into the brain.

People with the Icelandic mutation are five times more likely to reach their 85 birthday without an Alzheimer’s diagnosis.

The Icelandic variant: Scientists have identified a couple of differences between the brains of people with Alzheimer’s and those of healthy people.