Using just 20 watts of power, the human brain is capable of processing the equivalent of an exaflop — or a billion-billion mathematical operations per second.
Now, researchers in Australia are building what will be the world’s first supercomputer that can simulate networks at this scale.
Differences in information transmission in the brain network between humans and other species are not well understood. Here, the authors apply an information theory approach to structural connectomes and functional MRI and report that human brain networks display more evidence of parallel information transmission compared to macaques and mice.
While it’s not the first technology to be able to translate brain signals into language, it’s the only one so far to require neither brain implants nor access to a full-on MRI machine.
It offers new hope to people unable to communicate in other ways.
Psychiatrist and author Dr. Anna Lembke discusses dopamine, addictive behaviors, warning signs and treatment for addiction, and how our brains handle all that pleasure and pain in life. Dr. Lembke is a professor of psychiatry at Stanford University School of Medicine and chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic. She appeared in the 2020 Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma to discuss the addictive nature of social media, and she is the author of the 2021 New York Times bestseller Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence, which explores how to moderate compulsive overconsumption in a dopamine-overloaded world.
Dr. Alok Kanojia (Dr. K) is a psychiatrist, Harvard Medical School instructor, co-founder of HealthyGamerGG, Twitch streamer and a YouTuber. Humans face a predicament that has never been seen in our history, a massive overload in daily stimulation and information. The effect of constant exposure to social media, video games, and porn is not good, but thankfully there are a number of powerful ways to take back control of your attention. Expect to learn the correlation between video game usage and mental health, why our brains are uniquely addicted to looking at screens, whether dopamine fasting is actually legit, the problem with watching porn at a young age, how to combat screen addiction, why some people always feel like they have brain fog, how to find meaning in your life and much more…
Summary: Experienced meditators can voluntarily induce unconscious states, known as cessations, without the use of drugs. This ability, observed in Tibetan Buddhist practice, allows meditators to experience a momentary void of consciousness, followed by enhanced mental clarity.
Conducted across multiple countries, the study utilized EEG spectral analysis to objectively measure brain activity during these cessation events. By correlating the meditator’s first-person experience with neuroimaging data, researchers have gained insights into the profound modulation of consciousness achievable through advanced meditation practices.