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Category: neuroscience – Page 610

Study finds that sound plus electrical body stimulation has potential to treat chronic pain

A University of Minnesota Twin Cities-led team has found that electrical stimulation of the body combined with sound activates the brain’s somatosensory or “tactile” cortex, increasing the potential for using the technique to treat chronic pain and other sensory disorders. The researchers tested the non-invasive technique on animals and are planning clinical trials on humans in the near future.

The paper is published in the Journal of Neural Engineering, a highly regarded, peer-reviewed scientific journal for the interdisciplinary field of neural engineering.

During the experiments, the researchers played broadband sound while electrically stimulating different parts of the body in guinea pigs. They found that the combination of the two activated neurons in the brain’s somatosensory cortex, which is responsible for touch and pain sensations throughout the body.

Researchers discover unique material design for brain-like computations

Over the past few decades, computers have seen dramatic progress in processing power; however, even the most advanced computers are relatively rudimentary in comparison with the complexities and capabilities of the human brain.

Researchers at the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command’s Army Research Laboratory say this may be changing as they endeavor to design computers inspired by the human brain’s neural structure.

As part of a collaboration with Lehigh University, Army researchers have identified a design strategy for the development of neuromorphic materials.

Neuroscience research suggests LSD might enhance learning and memory

New research published in Experimental Neurology provides some initial evidence that the psychedelic substance known as LSD has nootropic properties. The study found that LSD increased markers of neuroplasticity in human brain organoids, increased novelty preference in rats, and improved memory performance in humans.

When combined with psychotherapy, psychedelic drugs have shown promise in the treatment of psychiatric conditions such as depression, PTSD, and addiction. But the cellular and molecular mechanisms involved in the therapeutic effects of psychedelics remains unclear.

Some research has indicated that psychedelic substances produce positive impacts, in part, because they promote neurogenesis and neuroplasticity. The authors of the new study were interested in better understanding whether the neuroplasticity induced by psychedelics could be harnessed to enhance learning and memory.

Donald Hoffman Λ Joscha Bach on Consciousness, Free Will, and Gödel [Theolocution]

Deep dive into the nature of consciousness and reality.

Sponsors: https://brilliant.org/TOE for 20% off. For Algo’s podcast https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9IfRw1QaTglRoX0sN11AQQ and website https://www.algo.com/.

Patreon: https://patreon.com/curtjaimungal.
Crypto: https://tinyurl.com/cryptoTOE
PayPal: https://tinyurl.com/paypalTOE
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TOEwithCurt.
Discord Invite: https://discord.com/invite/kBcnfNVwqs.
iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/better-left-unsaid-wit…1521758802
Pandora: https://pdora.co/33b9lfP
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4gL14b92xAErofYQA7bU4e.
Subreddit r/TheoriesOfEverything: https://reddit.com/r/theoriesofeverything.
Merch: https://tinyurl.com/TOEmerch.

LINKS MENTIONED:
–QBism Paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/1003.5209
–Donald Hoffman’s book The Case Against Reality (affiliate): https://amzn.to/34eWmxz.
–Plato and the Nerd (affiliate): https://amzn.to/34GMexr.

TIMESTAMPS:
00:00:00 Introduction.
00:03:34 Is a Theory of Everything possible? / Definition of Consciousness.
00:08:32 Spacetime’s fundamental nature (or not)
00:14:27 Joscha Bach on mysterianism, telepathy, and consciousness.
00:34:40 Joscha has a way of interpreting the Bible literally.
00:42:01 Physical world vs Computational world.
00:57:57 On Gödel and changing the definition of truth to provable / computable.
01:12:33 What parts of the mind makes statements beyond computation?
01:13:57 Real numbers don’t exist?
01:15:23 [Prof. Edward Lee] Reality is not necessarily algorithmic.
01:34:02 Donald Hoffman on Free Will.
01:44:03 Joscha Bach on Free Will and whether a TOE exists.
01:57:10 What would change in Bach’s model if classical logic was correct?
02:07:42 Penrose and Lucas argument regarding Gödel and the mind.
02:13:55 Closing thoughts from Bach and Hoffman on each other’s work.

Just wrapped (April 2021) a documentary called Better Left Unsaid http://betterleftunsaidfilm.com on the topic of “when does the left go too far?” Visit that site if you’d like to watch it.

Continue reading “Donald Hoffman Λ Joscha Bach on Consciousness, Free Will, and Gödel [Theolocution]” | >

Researchers discover new molecules with longevity boosting potential

Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have discovered a new family of molecules that enable cells to repair damaged components, making it possible for those tissues to retain proper function. The efficacy of the molecules was demonstrated on a model organism – the C. elegans roundworm. The research team examined the effect of various therapies on longevity and quality of life, and successfully showed they can protect the worm and human cells from damage.

The researchers, led by Professors Einav Gross and Shmuel Ben-Sasson, have founded a company called Vitalunga to advance the research and translate it into therapeutics.

Longevity. Technology: A major factor in aging tissues is the reduced effectiveness of our cell’s quality-control mechanism, which leads to the accumulation of defective mitochondria – the cellular ‘power plants’ responsible for energy production. Mitochondria can be compared to tiny electric batteries that help cells function properly. Although these ‘batteries’ wear out constantly, our cells have a sophisticated mechanism called mitophagy that removes defective mitochondria and replaces them with new ones. However, this mechanism declines with age, leading to cell dysfunction and deterioration in tissue activity, and is implicated in many age-related diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, heart failure and sarcopenia.

Want to protect your brain from aging? Learn another language

Being bilingual slows down the negative effects of aging on the brain.

Our brains start slowing down in their once-magical abilities after a certain age.

Scientists have been finding out is that there are methods that can slow down the aging of the brain.

An experimental study has shown that being bilingual slows down the brain’s aging process.

Many of us know from personal experience that our brains start slowing down in their once-magical abilities after a certain point. You can’t remember certain things quite as well, and some calculations start taking longer. It’s a normal part of the “cognitive aging” that scientists have observed in humans. This aging happens at different rates in different people, based on each person’s so-called Cognitive Reserve. Some people may see few changes late in their years, while others may develop serious illnesses that affect their brain’s functions. As some areas of the brain experience changes in grey and white matter, cases of dementia and other neurodegenerative diseases tend to grow with age.

Full Story:

Continue reading “Want to protect your brain from aging? Learn another language” | >

Physicist Claims To Have Solved the Mystery of Consciousness

According to the theory, all that’s needed to solve the hard problem of consciousness is to change our assumptions about it. When we realize that consciousness is a physical, relativistic phenomenon, the mystery of consciousness naturally dissolves.

How do 3 pounds of brain tissue create thoughts, feelings, mental images, and a detailed inner world?

The ability of the brain to create consciousness has baffled people for millennia. The mystery of consciousness lies in the fact that each of us has subjectivity, with the ability to sense, feel, and think. In contrast to being under anesthesia or in a dreamless deep sleep, while we’re awake we don’t “live in the dark” — we experience the world and ourselves. However, it remains a mystery how the brain creates the conscious experience and what area of the brain is responsible.

Neuromorphic Chip Gets $1 Million in Pre-Orders

“We are aiming to provide capabilities in the tens to hundreds of milliwatts range, depending on the use case,” Makhijani said.

Compared to the first–gen chip GrAI One, the third–gen GrAI VIP is slightly physically smaller at 7.6 × 7.6 mm, but the company has skipped a process node and migrated to TSMC 12 nm. The chip has slightly fewer neuron cores, 144 compared to 196, but each core is bigger. The result is a jump from 200,000 neuron cores (250,000 parameters) to around 18 million neurons for a total of 48 million parameters. On–chip memory has jumped from 4 MB to 36 MB.

An M.2 hardware development kit featuring GrAI VIP is available now, shipping with GrAI Matter’s GrAI Flow software stack and model zoo for image classification, object detection, and image segmentation.

How researchers use new tools to map the structure and function of the brain

Comotion_design/iStock.

The U.S. Brain Research Through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative is a collaboration among the National Institutes of Health, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, National Science Foundation, Food and Drug Administration, Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity, and others. Since its inception in 2013, its goal has been to develop and use new technologies to examine how each neuron and neural circuit come together to “record, process, utilize, store, and retrieve vast quantities of information, all at the speed of thought.”