Lifeboat Foundation

Humans have the innate ability to store important information in their mind for short periods of time, a capability known as short-term memory. Over the past few decades, numerous neuroscientists have tried to understand how neural circuits store short-term memories, as this could lead to approaches to assist individuals whose memory is failing and help to devise memory enhancing interventions.

Researchers at Stanford and the Janelia Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute have recently identified neural circuit motifs involved in how humans store short-term memories. Their findings, published in Nature Neuroscience, suggest that memory-related neural circuits contain recurrently connected modules that independently maintain selective and continuous activity.

“Short-term memories are of approximately 10 seconds or so, for example, if you needed to remember a phone number while you looked for a pen to write the number,” Kayvon Daie, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told Medical Xpress. “Individual neurons, however, are very forgetful, as they can only remember their inputs for about 10 milliseconds. It has been hypothesized that if two forgetful neurons were connected to each other, they could continuously remind each other of what they were supposed to remember so that the circuit can now hold information for many seconds.”

How recent research points the way towards defeating adversarial examples and achieving a more resilient, consistent and flexible A.I.

How recent neuroscience research points the way towards defeating adversarial examples and achieving a more resilient, consistent and flexible form of artificial intelligence.

Continue reading “Towards the end of deep learning and the beginning of AGI” »

“Previously reported detection of plant biomagnetism, which established the existence of measurable magnetic activity in the plant kingdom, was carried out using superconducting-quantum-interference-device (SQUID) magnetometers1, 5, 16. Atomic magnetometers are arguably more attractive for biological applications, since, unlike SQUIDs34, 35, they are non-cryogenic and can be miniaturized to optimize spatial resolution of measured biological features14, 15, 36. In the future, the SNR of magnetic measurements in plants will benefit from optimizing the low-frequency stability and sensitivity of atomic magnetometers. Just as noninvasive magnetic techniques have become essential tools for medical diagnostics of the human brain and body, this noninvasive technique could also be useful in the future for crop-plant diagnostics—by measuring the electromagnetic response of plants facing such challenges as sudden temperature change, herbivore attack, and chemical exposure.”

Upon stimulation, plants elicit electrical signals that can travel within a cellular network analogous to the animal nervous system. It is well-known that in the human brain, voltage changes in certain regions result from concerted electrical activity which, in the form of action potentials (APs), travels within nerve-cell arrays. Electro-and magnetophysiological techniques like electroencephalography, magnetoencephalography, and magnetic resonance imaging are used to record this activity and to diagnose disorders. Here we demonstrate that APs in a multicellular plant system produce measurable magnetic fields. Using atomic optically pumped magnetometers, biomagnetism associated with electrical activity in the carnivorous Venus flytrap, Dionaea muscipula, was recorded. Action potentials were induced by heat stimulation and detected both electrically and magnetically.

Long but annotated! Most important here is human data for specific treatments due out starting in May or June. And apparently they had a mouse study where they expected a paper due out already but other groups chimed in to help with more testing so there is a delay.

Liz Parrish, CEO of BioViva Science and patient zero of biological rejuvenation with gene therapies, is interviewed by Zora Benhamou on her fresh podcast “HackMyAge”.

Continue reading “Liz Parrish goes deep into gene therapies at the HackMyAge Podcast by Zora (March 2021)” »

Devices shift away from Robocop-like wearables to simpler, more accessible assistive solutions.

There are many, many wearable and portable devices aimed at improving life for the blind and visually impaired (in some cases, even restoring vision). Such devices have been developed for pretty much every part of the body: fingers, wrists, abdomen, chest, face, ears, feet, even the tongue.

Continue reading “Neuroscientists Unveil Tech for the Vision Impaired: Bionic Eyes, Textured Tablets and More” »

Summary: A new genetic engineering strategy significantly reduces levels of tau in animal models of Alzheimer’s disease. The treatment, which involves a single injection, appears to have long-last effects.

Source: Mass General.

Researchers have used a genetic engineering strategy to dramatically reduce levels of tau–a key protein that accumulates and becomes tangled in the brain during the development of Alzheimer’s disease–in an animal model of the condition.

The regeneration of damaged central nervous system (CNS) tissues is one of the biggest goals of regenerative medicine.

Most stroke victims don’t receive treatment fast enough to prevent brain damage. Scientists at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, College of Engineering and College of Medicine have developed technology to “retrain” cells to help repair damaged brain tissue. It’s an advancement that may someday help patients regain speech, cognition and motor function, even when administered days after an ischemic stroke.

Engineering and medical researchers use a process created by Ohio State called tissue nanotransfection (TNT) to introduce genetic material into cells. This allows them to reprogram skin cells to become something different—in this case vascular cells—to help fix damaged brain tissue.

Continue reading “New technology ‘retrains’ cells to repair damaged brain tissue in mice after stroke” »

I will look at the idea that all disease could be almost stopped in its tracks with a universal treatment for aging. A lot of people ask when we will cure aging and the answer is it may well be here sooner than many realise.

It doesn’t matter how good the treatments are that we develop for cancer, heart disease, alzheimers, and any other of a number of the most common ways we finally die, it is really just a game of whack a mole. If you survive one, just wait a few years and another will get you.

Continue reading “An End To Aging — The Mother Of All Disease” »

Scientists in Denmark believe the psychedelic substance psilocybin might produce rapid and lasting antidepressant effects in part because it enhances neuroplasticity in the brain. Their new research, published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences, has found evidence that psilocybin increases the number of neuronal connections in the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus of pig brains.

Psilocybin — the active component in so-called “magic” mushrooms — has been shown to have profound and long-lasting effects on personality and mood. But the mechanisms behind these effects remain unclear. Researchers at Copenhagen University were interested in whether changes in neuroplasticity in brain regions associated with emotional processing could help explain psilocybin’s antidepressant effects.

“Both post-mortem human brain and in vivo studies in depressed individuals have shown a loss of synapses through the down-regulation of synaptic proteins and genes,” the authors of the study wrote. “Hence, upregulation of presynaptic proteins and an increase in synaptic density may be associated with the potential antidepressive effects of psychedelics.”