The living mycelium networks are capable of efficient sensorial fusion over very large areas and distributed decision making. The information processing in the mycelium networks is implemented via propagation of electrical and chemical signals en pair with morphological changes in the mycelium structure. These information processing mechanisms are manifested in experimental laboratory findings that show that the mycelium networks exhibit rich dynamics of neuron-like spiking behaviour and a wide range of non-linear electrical properties. On an example of a single real colony of Aspergillus niger, we demonstrate that the non-linear transformation of electrical signals and trains of extracellular voltage spikes can be used to implement logical gates and circuits.
Human Cyborg — We’ve all seen Cyborgs in Hollywood blockbusters. But it turns out these fictional beings aren’t so far-fetched.
Human Cyborg (2020) Director: Jacquelyn Marker. Writers: Kyle McCabe, Christopher Webb Young. Stars: Justin Abernethy, Robert Armiger, John Donoghue. Genre: Documentary. Country: United States. Language: English. Also Known As: Cyborg Revolution. Release Date: 2020 (United States)
Synopsis: We’ve all seen Cyborgs in Hollywood blockbusters. But it turns out these fictional beings aren’t so far-fetched. In fact, this episode features a true-to-life cyborg, who at four months of age, was the youngest American to be outfitted with a myoelectric hand. And at one ground-breaking engineering facility, engineers are developing biotechnologies that can even further enhance high-tech like this by giving mechanical prosthetics something incredible: the physical sensation of touch!
Other engineering firms are gearing up powerful exoskeletons that both rehabilitate and enhance the power of the human body… improving the lives of those with paralysis and transforming the work force.
But the real pivot is getting machines inside the body. An out-of-the-box ‘transhumanist’ featured in the episode installs a chip inside a person’s hand. It works as a key that unlocks doors, literally and figuratively.
However, brain-machine integration poses the biggest challenges, and the biggest rewards. Cutting-edge neuroscientists and technologists reveal how computer chips can directly interface with the human brain in ways that not only rehabilitate, but which can also ‘read thoughts’ in real-time.
Summary: Our native language may affect the way in which our brains are wired and underlie the way we think, a new study reports. Using neuroimaging to analyze neural connectivity in native German and native Arabic speakers, researchers found stronger connectivity between the right and left hemispheres in Arabic speakers, and stronger connectivity in the left hemisphere language area in German speakers.
Source: Max Planck Institute.
Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig have found evidence that the language we speak shapes the connectivity in our brains that may underlie the way we think.
Researchers in China have successfully restored the vision of mice with retinitis pigmentosa, one of the major causes of blindness in humans. The study, to be published March 17 in the Journal of Experimental Medicine, uses a new, highly versatile form of CRISPR-based genome editing with the potential to correct a wide variety of disease-causing genetic mutations.
Researchers have previously used genome editing to restore the vision of mice with genetic diseases, such as Leber congenital amaurosis, that affect the retinal pigment epithelium, a layer of non-neuronal cells in the eye that supports the light-sensing rod and cone photoreceptor cells. However, most inherited forms of blindness, including retinitis pigmentosa, are caused by genetic defects in the neural photoreceptors themselves.
“The ability to edit the genome of neural retinal cells, particularly unhealthy or dying photoreceptors, would provide much more convincing evidence for the potential applications of these genome-editing tools in treating diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa,” says Kai Yao, a professor at the Wuhan University of Science and Technology.
Intracerebral hemorrhage, and bleeding into the brain tissue, is a devastating neurological condition affecting millions of people annually. It has a high mortality rate, while survivors are affected by long-term neurological deficits. No medication has been found to support brain recovery following hemorrhage.
In an international collaboration, researchers from the Brain Repair laboratory, University of Helsinki, together with their Taiwanese colleagues investigated whether a protein called cerebral dopamine neurotrophic factor (CDNF) has potential as a treatment for brain hemorrhage.
Researchers suggest that cerebral dopamine neurotrophic factor, a protein being currently tested for Parkinson’s disease treatment, also has therapeutic effects and enhances immune cell’s response after brain hemorrhage.
Of all the advanced technologies currently under development, one of the most fascinating and frightening is brain-computer interfaces. They’re fascinating because we still have so much to learn about the human brain, yet scientists are already able to tap into certain parts of it. And they’re frightening because of the sinister possibilities that come with being able to influence, read, or hijack peoples’ thoughts.
But the worst-case scenarios that have been played out in science fiction are just one side of the coin, and brain-computer interfaces could also be a tremendous boon to humanity—if we create, manage, and regulate them correctly. In a panel discussion at South by Southwest this week, four experts in the neuroscience and computing field discussed how to do this.
Panelists included Ben Hersh, a staff interaction designer at Google; Anna Wexler, an assistant professor of medical ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania; Afshin Mehin, the founder of a creative studio that helps companies give form to the future called Card79; and Jacob Robinson, an associate professor in electrical and computer engineering at Rice University and co-founder of Motif Neurotech, a company creating minimally invasive electronic therapies for mental health.
1. The mind, brain, and body are inextricably linked
The idea that the mind and brain are separate is usually attributed to the 17th-century French mathematician and philosopher René Descartes, who was what philosophers now call a substance dualist. Descartes believed that the mind and body are made of different substances: the body of a physical substance, and the mind of some mysterious, nonphysical material.
Today, most neuroscientists reject this idea. Modern brain research suggests that the mind is made of matter and emerges from brain activity. Even so, most still study the brain in isolation, without taking the body into consideration.
Iain McGilchrist explains how we have misunderstood the nature of reality by over-relying on the left-hemisphere with its incomplete models of the world.
A wiring map diagrams more than half a million neuronal connections in the first complete connectome of Drosophila and holds clues about which brain architectures best support learning.
