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Category: neuroscience – Page 71

Basically mushrooms can cure all major illnesses all over the human body and brain. If all the pharmaceutical companies got into business with Chinese medicine which has used mushrooms of all types we essentially have a no side effect system of 100 percent healing. Even the basic food pyramid has show essentially to prove beneficial to humans more than medicines. Also essentially nanotransfection for people that have lost limbs or lost any body part could in the future regenerate limbs similar to wolverine like in the marvel comics but at a slower pace but would heal anything while the mushrooms keep one well and fed. A lot of the American studies are a stop gap measure while mushrooms can cure things slowly but to 100 percent. Along with healthy eating and nanotransfection one could have all they need for any regeneration in the far future. In the future this technology and food could essentially allow for minimal down time healing inside and the foods would fuel the body. It could be put on a smartphone where even trillions of dollars would be saved getting doctor treatments down to a dollar or less for entire body scans and healing. It would be the first step towards Ironman but using the human body to heal itself and the foods to fuel regeneration.

The WHO has published the first list of priority fungal pathogens, which affect more than 300 million people and kill at least 1.5 million people every year. However, funding to control this scourge is less than 1.5% of that devoted to infectious diseases.

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Researchers have mapped the long-range synaptic connections involved in vocal learning in zebra finches, uncovering new details about how the brain organizes learned vocalizations such as birdsong.

The study, published as a Reviewed Preprint in eLife, is described by the editors as having fundamental significance and compelling evidence clarifying how four distinct inputs to a specific region of the brain act on three distinct cell types to facilitate the learning and production of birdsong.

Understanding how the brain integrates sensory and motor information to guide learned vocalizations is crucial for studying both birdsong and human speech. The courtship song of male is a well-studied example of a naturally learned behavior, and is controlled by a set of interconnected forebrain regions in the dorsal ventricular ridge (DVR)—the avian equivalent of the mammalian neocortex.

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I think Paul may have posted this already, if so here is some more information from a site about drug repurposng. Its really cool.

Click the video above to watch a story that ran on CBS Evening News about leucovorin for ASD.

Every Cure is excited to highlight the potential role that leucovorin (folinic acid) may play in improving verbal communication in some individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) who have speech challenges and certain antibodies that cause a vitamin deficiency in the brain. As a nonprofit research organization committed to identifying and elevating potential repurposed treatments, we’ve summarized information about this promising drug repurposing opportunity below.

A vitamin deficiency may contribute to speech challenges in some individuals with ASD.

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A new study published in Cell Reports reveals a breakthrough discovery linking genetic variants in the gene ITSN1 to a significantly elevated risk of Parkinson’s disease, a neurodegenerative condition that affects nearly 2% of adults older than 65 years.

These findings were subsequently validated across three independent cohorts comprising more than 8,000 cases and 400,000 controls. Importantly, ITSN1 carriers trended toward earlier age of disease onset.

ITSN1 plays an important role in how neurons send messages to each other – a process called synaptic transmission – making it particularly relevant to Parkinson’s disease, a condition in which disruption of nerve signals leads to the typical symptoms of impaired gait and balance, tremors and rigidity. “We also showed in fruit flies that reducing ITSN1 levels worsens Parkinson’s-like features, including the ability to climb. We plan to extend these investigations to stem cell and mouse models,” the author said.

Interestingly, previous studies have recently implicated similar ITSN1 mutations in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Other emerging data also have suggested an association between ASD and Parkinson’s disease, indicating that people with ASD are three times more likely to develop parkinsonism.

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The body you inhabit is made up of lots of moving parts that need to communicate with each other.

Some of this communication – in the nervous system, for example – takes the form of bioelectrical signals that propagate through the body to trigger the appropriate response.

Now, US researchers have discovered that the epithelial cells that line our skin and organs are able to signal the same way to communicate peril. They just use a long, slow ‘scream’, rather than the rapid-fire communication of neurons.

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Brain implants hold immense promise for restoring function in patients with paralysis, epilepsy and other neurological disorders. But a team of researchers at Case Western Reserve University has discovered that bacteria can invade the brain after a medical device is implanted, contributing to inflammation and reducing the device’s long-term effectiveness.

The research, published in Nature Communications, could improve the long-term success of brain implants now that a target has been identified to address.

“Understanding the role of bacteria in implant performance and brain health could revolutionize how these devices are designed and maintained,” said Jeff Capadona, Case Western Reserve’s vice provost for innovation, the Donnell Institute Professor of Biomedical Engineering and senior research career scientist at the Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center.

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Convergent engagement of neural and computational sciences and technologies are reciprocally enabling rapid developments in current and near-future military and intelligence operations. In this podcast, Prof. James Giordano of Georgetown University will provide an overview of how these scientific and technological fields can be — and are being — leveraged for non-kinetic and kinetic what has become known as cognitive warfare; and will describe key issues in this rapidly evolving operational domain.

James Giordano PhD, is the Pellegrino Center Professor in the Departments of Neurology and Biochemistry; Chief of the Neuroethics Studies Program; Co-director of the Project in Brain Sciences and Global Health Law and Policy; and Chair of the Subprogram in Military Medical Ethics at Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington DC. Professor Giordano is Senior Bioethicist of the Defense Medical Ethics Center, and Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences; Distinguished Stockdale Fellow in Science, Technology, and Ethics at the United States Naval Academy; Senior Science Advisory Fellow of the SMA Branch, Joint Staff, Pentagon; Non-resident Fellow of the Simon Center for the Military Ethic at the US Military Academy, West Point; Distinguished Visiting Professor of Biomedical Sciences, Health Promotions, and Ethics at the Coburg University of Applied Sciences, Coburg, GER; Chair Emeritus of the Neuroethics Project of the IEEE Brain Initiative; and serves as Director of the Institute for Biodefense Research, a federally funded Washington DC think tank dedicated to addressing emerging issues at the intersection of science, technology and national defense. He previously served as Donovan Group Senior Fellow, US Special Operations Command; member of the Neuroethics, Legal, and Social Issues Advisory Panel of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA); and Task Leader of the Working Group on Dual-Use of the EU-Human Brain Project. Prof. Giordano is the author of over 350 peer-reviewed publications, 9 books and 50governmental reports on science, technology, and biosecurity, and is an elected member of the European Academy of Science and Arts, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine (UK), and a Fulbright Professorial Fellow. A former US Naval officer, he was winged as an aerospace physiologist, and served with the US Navy and Marine Corps.

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Originally released December 2023._ In today’s episode, host Luisa Rodriguez speaks to Nita Farahany — professor of law and philosophy at Duke Law School — about applications of cutting-edge neurotechnology.

They cover:
• How close we are to actual mind reading.
• How hacking neural interfaces could cure depression.
• How companies might use neural data in the workplace — like tracking how productive you are, or using your emotional states against you in negotiations.
• How close we are to being able to unlock our phones by singing a song in our heads.
• How neurodata has been used for interrogations, and even criminal prosecutions.
• The possibility of linking brains to the point where you could experience exactly the same thing as another person.
• Military applications of this tech, including the possibility of one soldier controlling swarms of drones with their mind.
• And plenty more.

In this episode:
• Luisa’s intro [00:00:00]
• Applications of new neurotechnology and security and surveillance [00:04:25]
• Controlling swarms of drones [00:12:34]
• Brain-to-brain communication [00:20:18]
• Identifying targets subconsciously [00:33:08]
• Neuroweapons [00:37:11]
• Neurodata and mental privacy [00:44:53]
• Neurodata in criminal cases [00:58:30]
• Effects in the workplace [01:05:45]
• Rapid advances [01:18:03]
• Regulation and cognitive rights [01:24:04]
• Brain-computer interfaces and cognitive enhancement [01:26:24]
• The risks of getting really deep into someone’s brain [01:41:52]
• Best-case and worst-case scenarios [01:49:00]
• Current work in this space [01:51:03]
• Watching kids grow up [01:57:03]

The 80,000 Hours Podcast features unusually in-depth conversations about the world’s most pressing problems and what you can do to solve them.

Learn more, read the summary and find the full transcript on the 80,000 Hours website:

Nita Farahany on the neurotechnology already being used to convict criminals and manipulate workers

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It could be very informative to observe the pixels on your phone under a microscope, but not if your goal is to understand what a whole video on the screen shows. Cognition is much the same kind of emergent property in the brain. It can only be understood by observing how millions of cells act in coordination, argues a trio of MIT neuroscientists. In a new article, they lay out a framework for understanding how thought arises from the coordination of neural activity driven by oscillating electric fields — also known as brain “waves” or “rhythms.”

Historically dismissed solely as byproducts of neural activity, brain rhythms are actually critical for organizing it, write Picower Professor Earl Miller and research scientists Scott Brincat and Jefferson Roy in Current Opinion in Behavioral Science. And while neuroscientists have gained tremendous knowledge from studying how individual brain cells connect and how and when they emit “spikes” to send impulses through specific circuits, there is also a need to appreciate and apply new concepts at the brain rhythm scale, which can span individual, or even multiple, brain regions.

“Spiking and anatomy are important, but there is more going on in the brain above and beyond that,” says senior author Miller, a faculty member in The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory and the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT. “There’s a whole lot of functionality taking place at a higher level, especially cognition.”

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