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Fluid intelligence refers to the ability to solve challenging novel problems when prior learning or accumulated experience are of limited use. 1 Fluid intelligence ranks amongst the most important features of cognition, correlates with many cognitive abilities (e.g. memory), 2 and predicts educational and professional success, 3 social mobility, 4 health 5 and longevity. 6 It is thought to be a key mental capacity involved in ‘active thinking’, 7 fluid intelligence declines dramatically in various types of dementia 8 and reflects the degree of executive impairment in older patients with frontal involvement. 9 Despite the importance of fluid intelligence in defining human behaviour, it remains contentious whether this is a single or a cluster of cognitive abilities and the nature of its relationship with the brain. 10

Fluid intelligence is traditionally measured with tests of novel problem-solving with non-verbal material that minimize dependence on prior knowledge. Such tests are known to have strong fluid intelligence correlations in large-scale factor analyses. 11, 12 Raven’s Advanced Progressive Matrices 13 (APM), a test widely adopted in clinical practice and research, 14 contains multiple choice visual analogy problems of increasing difficulty. Each problem presents an incomplete matrix of geometric figures with a multiple choice of options for the missing figure. Less commonly, verbal tests of fluid intelligence such as Part 1 of the Alice Heim 4 (AH4-1) 15 are adopted. The Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) 16 has also been used to estimate fluid intelligence by averaging performance on a diverse range of subtests. However, several subtests (e.g. vocabulary) emphasize knowledge, disproportionately weighting measures of ‘crystallized’ intelligence, 17, 18 whilst others (e.g. picture completion) have rather low fluid intelligence correlations. 19 Hence, it has been argued that tests such as the APM are the most suitable for a theoretically-based investigation of changes in fluid intelligence after brain injury. 20, 21

Proposals regarding the neural substrates of fluid intelligence have suggested close links with frontal and parietal functions. For example, Duncan and colleagues 22 have argued that a network of mainly frontal and parietal areas, termed the ‘multiple-demand network’ (MD), is ‘the seat’ of fluid intelligence. The highly influential parieto-frontal integration theory (P-FIT), based largely on neuroimaging studies of healthy subjects, posits that structural symbolism and abstraction emerge from sensory inputs to parietal cortex, with hypothesis generation and problem solving arising from interactions with frontal cortex. Once the best solution is identified, the anterior cingulate is engaged in response selection and inhibition of alternatives. 23, 24 Despite its name, P-FIT also posits occipital and temporal involvement, implying widely distributed substrates of fluid intelligence.

One afternoon in the fall of 2019, in a grand old office building near the Arc de Triomphe, I was buzzed through an unmarked door into a showroom for the future of surveillance. The space on the other side was dark and sleek, with a look somewhere between an Apple Store and a doomsday bunker. Along one wall, a grid of electronic devices glinted in the moody downlighting—automated license plate readers, Wi-Fi-enabled locks, boxy data processing units. I was here to meet Giovanni Gaccione, who runs the public safety division of a security technology company called Genetec. Headquartered in Montreal, the firm operates four of these “Experience Centers” around the world, where it peddles intelligence products to government officials. Genetec’s main sell here was software, and Gaccione had agreed to show me how it worked.

He led me first to a large monitor running a demo version of Citigraf, his division’s flagship product. The screen displayed a map of the East Side of Chicago. Around the edges were thumbnail-size video streams from neighborhood CCTV cameras. In one feed, a woman appeared to be unloading luggage from a car to the sidewalk. An alert popped up above her head: “ILLEGAL PARKING.” The map itself was scattered with color-coded icons—a house on fire, a gun, a pair of wrestling stick figures—each of which, Gaccione explained, corresponded to an unfolding emergency. He selected the stick figures, which denoted an assault, and a readout appeared onscreen with a few scant details drawn from the 911 dispatch center. At the bottom was a button marked “INVESTIGATE,” just begging to be clicked.

In a recent study published in Cell, researchers used a multi-omics approach to profile the gut microbiomes and metabolomes of mothers and infants to determine the vertical and horizontal transmission of bacterial species and strains as well as individual genes and understand the dynamics of the gut microbiome assembly that shape the development of the infant before and after birth.

The vertical transmission of gut bacteria from mother to fetus during pregnancy and the horizontal transfer of microbes through breast milk plays a vital role in the physical and cognitive development of the infant long after birth. Studies have shown associations between the gut microbiota composition of breastmilk and the development of the infant’s immune system, as well as autoimmune conditions and allergies. Furthermore, allergies and autoimmune disorders have also been linked to exogenous proteins in infant formula.

Metabolites produced by gut microbiota are also associated with the infant’s cognitive development. However, the development of gut microbiomes and metabolomes in the perinatal stage and their role in infant development remains unclear.

Do animals dream? Join David Peña-Guzmán as he explores behavioural and neuroscientific research on animal sleep with philosophical theories of dreaming. Watch the Q&A here: https://youtu.be/LpI7zNHUFRQ

David’s latest book ‘When animals dream: the hidden world of animal consciousness’ is available now: https://geni.us/YW7arw6
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Are humans the only dreamers on Earth? Dreams provide an invaluable window into the cognitive and emotional lives of nonhuman animals, giving us access to a seemingly inaccessible realm of human experience. From suggestions that many animals run ‘reality simulations’ while asleep to the profound implications for contemporary debates about animal cognition, ethics, and rights.

In this talk, discover a convincing case for animals as conscious beings and examine the thorny scientific, philosophical and ethical questions it raises.

This livestream was recorded on 28 July 2022.

David Peña-Guzmán received his PhD in Philosophy from Emory University in 2015. His dissertation, ‘The rational turn in continental philosophy: Bachelard, Canguilhem, Foucault’, is an interrogation of the school of historical epistemology that appeared in France sometime between the 1920s and the 1950s.

Once deemed dangerous and illegal, psychedelic compounds have been rediscovered by the scientific, medical and psychiatric communities as research reveals their capacity to help patients with a range of maladies. With investors beginning to flood this new market with capital, will Big Pharma join in, or try to squash a nascent revolution of the mind?

#Moonshots #Psychedelics #BloombergQuicktake.
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“Moonshot” introduces you to the scientists and thinkers chasing humanity’s wildest dreams. The series takes a deeper look into how science is solving the world’s most complex problems in order to create a better tomorrow. The first season explores major breakthroughs from scientists including plastic eating bacteria, asteroid hunting and oceanic exploration. Watch every episode: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqq4LnWs3olXYh0FhU2KgOg1Mzleojbie.

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NOTE FROM TED: Please do not look to this talk for mental health advice. This talk represents the speaker’s personal views and interpretation of psychedelics and mental health, which remains an emerging field of study. We’ve flagged this talk because it falls outside the content guidelines TED gives TEDx organizers. TEDx events are independently organized by volunteers. The guidelines we give TEDx organizers are described in more detail here: http://storage.ted.com/tedx/manuals/tedx_content_guidelines.pdf.

Psychedelics as medicine to treat mental health disease has had a recent resurgence of attention and dedicated research, with encouraging results. Could this class of drugs serve as a paradigm shift in the way mindfulness therapy and mental health is approached? Compounds like LSD, DMT, psilocybin, and MDMA are investigated as treatments for states of anxiety, depression, PTSD, and addiction. Listeners are challenged to question their preconceived notions and judgements as it pertains to this group of restricted therapeutics in the psychedelic class. Burton J. Tabaac, MD FAHA

Burton is an associate professor of neurology at the University of Nevada, Reno School of Medicine, dedicated to the cutting-edge treatment and prevention of cerebrovascular diseases. He is a graduate of the fellowship program in vascular neurology at Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore, MD (2019). After graduating from AUC School of Medicine, where he earned his MD (2014), Tabaac completed a neurology residency at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson in New Brunswick, NJ. There, he was humbled to have been selected as a three-time recipient of The Arnold P. Gold Foundation’s Humanism and Excellence in Teaching Award (2016, 2017, and 2018). This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community.

A group of neuroscientists developed a test to detect a novel marker of Alzheimer’s.

Alzheimer’s disease is a disease that attacks the brain, causing a decline in mental ability that worsens over time. It is the most common form of dementia and accounts for 60 to 80 percent of dementia cases. There is no current cure for Alzheimer’s disease, but there are medications that can help ease the symptoms.

New insights into the opposing actions of serotonin-producing nerve fibers in mice could lead to drugs for treating addiction and major depression.

Scientists in Japan have identified a nerve pathway involved in the processing of rewarding and distressing stimuli and situations in mice.

The new pathway, originating in a bundle of stem nerve fibers called the median raphe , acts in opposition to a previously identified reward/aversion pathway that originates in the nearby dorsal raphe nucleus. The findings, published by scientists at Hokkaido University and Kyoto University with their colleagues in the journal Nature Communications, could have implications for developing drug treatments for various mental disorders, including addiction and .

New research in Biological Psychiatry offers the first direct evidence of diminished 5-HT release cements “serotonin hypothesis.”

Researchers have postulated since the 1960s that major depression stems from disruptions in the serotonin neurotransmitter system. However, the evidence for that idea, though plentiful, was indirect. In fact, a recent comprehensive analysis of existing studies concluded that there was not strong evidence to support the “serotonin hypothesis.” In its wake, some in the field have called for a reexamination of the hypothesis. Not so fast, says a new study that provides direct evidence of disrupted serotonin release in the brains of individuals with depression.

The study was published recently in the journal Biological Psychiatry.

As a general rule, if you want sight, you need light. You’re only reading this right now thanks to the light from your screen being beamed onto your retinas, converted into electrical signals, and sent up the optic nerve for your brain to interpret as a bunch of words and images.

But what if you could see things without all that rigamarole? It might sound impossible – perhaps even counter to the very definition of sight – but thanks to the bizarre world of quantum mechanics, it’s actually perfectly possible.

“Since the inception of quantum mechanics, the quest to understand measurements has been a rich source of intellectual fascination,” notes a new paper published this month.