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Summary: Information about new experiences is retained by being tied to pre-existing activity patterns in the brain. Memory is acquired when the patterns are connected to each other across brain regions via transient bursts of activity.

Source: Osaka Metropolitan University.

In the brain, neuronal ensembles that bear the memory of an experience existed beforehand, suggesting a paradox that we already know what we are about to know.

Summary: The Izhikevich neuron model allows the simulation of both periodic and quasi-periodic responses in neurons at lower computational cost.

Source: Tokyo University of Science.

The brain is inarguably the single most important organ in the human body. It controls how we move, react, think and feel, and enables us to have complex emotions and memories. The brain is composed of approximately 86 billion neurons that form a complex network. These neurons receive, process, and transfer information using chemical and electrical signals.

New research in rats suggests that vitamin K intake can improve cognitive abilities in the aging brain.

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Comparing brain volume before and after individuals were exposed to SARS-CoV-2, this study documents significant cortical gray matter loss, equivalent to nearly 10 years of aging.

Illinois Tech designs new engine brains that could reduce emissions.

In our own not-so-distant future we’ll witness the emergence of synthetic superintelligence as a new kingdom of life. Whether that will happen in 5 or 50 years doesn’t really matter, we are firmly on the path of facilitating its emergence — synthetic intelligence is an extension of us, natural intelligence, the future version of ourselves. On a long billions-of-years evolutionary journey from the first primordial prokaryote to a Solaris-like planetary mind, we’re merely years away from this cardinal metamorphosis.

#CyberneticTheoryofMind #consciousness #evolution #mind

“Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms. For consciousness is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else. ―Erwin Schrödinger.

Continue reading “A Novel Science of Consciousness: Towards the Cybernetic Theory of Mind” »

Summary: Tau-tangles trigger the inflammatory activation of microglia via the NF-κB pathway. Inhibiting the microglia NF-κB signaling pulled the immune cells out of their inflammatory state and reversed learning and memory problems in tau-based Alzheimer’s mouse models.

Source: Weill Cornell Medicine.

Inhibiting an important signaling pathway in brain-resident immune cells may calm brain inflammation and thereby slow the disease process in Alzheimer’s and some other neurodegenerative diseases, suggests a study by Weill Cornell Medicine investigators.

A man left in a completely locked-in state by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) has been able to communicate with his family and carers thanks to an implant. The device helped the patient, who was unable to move any muscles or even open his eyes, contact the outside world using only his brain activity.

Rapid neurodegeneration

In the last decade, combinations of brain implants and brain-computer interfaces (BCI) have enabled people with severe brain injuries or neurodegeneration to regain communicative ability. The new study, published in Nature Communications by an international research team, is the first to be used successfully in a patient with such severe neurodegeneration.