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Category: neuroscience – Page 376

Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who last year described himself as “fairly nocturnal,” is known for his history of working through the night and even sleeping beneath his desk to meet deadlines. Recently, however, he revealed that he is endeavoring to secure at least six hours of sleep every night.

In an interview with CNBC on Tuesday, Musk said, “I’ve tried to sleep less, but even though I’m awake more hours, I get less done. And the brain pain level is bad if I get less than six hours of sleep per night.”

Musk said he often works seven days per week and only takes “two or three” truly workless vacation days yearly. However, he said he doesn’t expect his employees to model that behavior.

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Do intelligent people think faster? Researchers at the BIH and Charité—Universitätsmedizin Berlin, together with a colleague from Barcelona, made the surprising finding that participants with higher intelligence scores were only quicker when tackling simple tasks, while they took longer to solve difficult problems than subjects with lower IQ scores.

In personalized brain simulations of the 650 participants, the researchers could determine that brains with reduced synchrony between literally “jump to conclusions” when making decisions, rather than waiting until upstream brain regions could complete the processing steps needed to solve the problem.

In fact, the brain models for higher score participants also needed more time to solve challenging tasks but made fewer errors. The scientists have now published their findings in the journal Nature Communications.

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Crispre cas 9.

A major issue in neuroscience is the poor translatability of research results from preclinical studies in animals to clinical outcomes. Comparative neuroscience can overcome this barrier by studying multiple species to differentiate between species-specific and general mechanisms of neural circuit functioning. Targeted manipulation of neural circuits often depends on genetic dissection, and use of this technique has been restricted to only a few model species, limiting its application in comparative research. However, ongoing advances in genomics make genetic dissection attainable in a growing number of species. To demonstrate the potential of comparative gene editing approaches, we developed a viral-mediated CRISPR/Cas9 strategy that is predicted to target the oxytocin receptor (Oxtr) gene in 80 rodent species. This strategy specifically reduced OXTR levels in all evaluated species (n = 6) without causing gross neuronal toxicity. Thus, we show that CRISPR/Cas9-based tools can function in multiple species simultaneously. Thereby, we hope to encourage comparative gene editing and improve the translatability of neuroscientific research.

The development of comparative gene editing strategies improves the translatability of animal research.

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If I were a brilliant physicist, I would have written this.

Learn more about differential equations (and many other topics in maths and science) on Brilliant using the link https://brilliant.org/sabine. You can get started for free, and the first 200 will get 20% off the annual premium subscription.

Do humans have free will or to the laws of physics imply that such a concept is not much more than a fairy tale? Do we make decisions? Did the big bang start a chain reaction of cause and effects leading to the creation of this video? That’s what we’ll talk about today.

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00:00 Intro.

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Imagine a world where every conceivable facet of your reality is nothing more than sensory experience devoid of any real meaning; And that your emotions, organs, and even your closest relationships were nothing but pleasurable impulses being transmitted directly into your brain.

This is the hypothesis posited by the Brain in a Vat theory. If an evil scientist (or rich transhumanist, whichever you prefer) were to take your brain, submerge it in a jar or vat of nutrients, in theory, you could be force fed the information you process on a daily basis.

If your neurons were connected to some type of hardware and/or software that could continuously provide the necessary stimuli, you’d be ripe for this process.

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Discover the intriguing findings that shed light on the significance of brain shape and its influence on brain activity.

Groundbreaking research conducted by a team of Australian scientists suggests that the shape of our brains may affect us more than we think. Nobody wonders if their brain shape is an important parameter. Most people attribute brain size to behaviors even more.

However, it turns out that shape has a more significant impact on our thoughts and behavior than the connections and signals between neurons.

http://www.fotogestoeber.de/iStock.

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Severe brain injuries or head traumas in humans can lead to various stages of so-called disorders of consciousness (DoC). These are states in which consciousness is either partly or entirely absent, such as a coma; unresponsive wakefulness syndrome, also known as a vegetative state; and minimally conscious state.

Accurately evaluating who have lost consciousness is of crucial importance, as it allows doctors to determine what treatments to administer and how to facilitate the re-emergence of consciousness. Typically, to clinically evaluate consciousness, doctors observe the behavior of patients in response to , such as sounds or images.

For instance, while patients in a are awake but continue to be unresponsive to , patients with MCS exhibit some behaviors that indicate that they are conscious. So far, most methods to assess the consciousness level of patients rely on sounds or , yet olfactory stimuli could potentially prove useful too.

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