Lifeboat Foundation

Machine learning, introduced 70 years ago, is based on evidence of the dynamics of learning in the brain. Using the speed of modern computers and large datasets, deep learning algorithms have recently produced results comparable to those of human experts in various applicable fields, but with different characteristics that are distant from current knowledge of learning in neuroscience.

Using advanced experiments on neuronal cultures and large scale simulations, a group of scientists at Bar-Ilan University in Israel has demonstrated a new type of ultrafast artificial intelligence algorithms—based on the very slow brain dynamics—which outperform learning rates achieved to date by state-of-the-art learning algorithms.

In an article published today in the journal Scientific Reports, the researchers rebuild the bridge between neuroscience and advanced artificial intelligence algorithms that has been left virtually useless for almost 70 years.

Researchers have developed a soft neural implant that can be wirelessly controlled using a smartphone. It is the first wireless neural device capable of indefinitely delivering multiple drugs and multiple colour lights, which neuroscientists believe can speed up efforts to uncover brain diseases such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, addiction, depression, and pain. A team under Professor Jae-Woong Jeong from the School of Electrical Engineering at KAIST and his collaborators have invented a device that can control neural circuits using a tiny brain implant controlled by a smartphone. The device, using Lego-like replaceable drug cartridges and powerful, low-energy Bluetooth, can target specific neurons of interest using drugs and light for prolonged periods. This study was published in Nature Biomedical Engineering.

“This novel device is the fruit of advanced electronics design and powerful micro and nanoscale engineering,” explained Professor Jeong. “We are interested in further developing this technology to make a brain implant for clinical applications.”

Alkahest, a California-based biotech start-up, has just revealed some compelling early results from an ongoing Phase 2 trial into the efficacy of its novel formulation of plasma proteins derived from young blood, developed to slow, or even stop, the cognitive decline associated with Alzheimer’s disease.

“Over the past 50 years [America has] gone from institutionalizing people with mental illnesses, often in subhuman conditions, [in state mental health hospitals] to incarcerating them at unprecedented and appalling rates—putting recovery out of reach for millions of Americans […] On any given day, between 300,000 and 400,000 people with mental illnesses are incarcerated in jails and prisons across the United States, and more than 500,000 people with mental illnesses are under correctional control in the community.” [1] Mental Health America (MHA) supports effective, accessible mental health treatment for all people who need it who are confined in adult or juvenile correctional facilities or under correctional control. People with mental health and substance use conditions also need an effective classification system to protect vulnerable prisoners and preserve their human rights. [2] Notwithstanding their loss of their liberty, prisoners with mental health and substance use conditions retain all other rights, and these must be zealously defended.

Background

In the past decade, America has been locking up increasing numbers of individuals with mental health conditions. [3] MHA is both concerned by and opposed to the increasing use of criminal sanctions and incarceration, replacing the state mental hospitals with much more drastic curtailment of personal liberty and preclusion of community integration and community-based treatment. [4] Prisoners with mental health conditions are especially vulnerable to the difficult and sometimes deplorable conditions that prevail in jails, prisons, and other correctional facilities. Overcrowding often contributes to inadequacy of mental health services and to ineffective classification and separation of prisoner classes. It can both increase vulnerability and exacerbate mental illnesses. For these and other reasons, MHA supports maximum reasonable diversion. [5].

The diseases most people die of have been attributed to unhealthy lifestyles. But evidence now suggests bacteria are to blame, heralding a revolution in medicine.

A soft neural implant that can be controlled by a smartphone is capable of drug delivery and optogenetics. The technology could speed up efforts to uncover the causes of neurological and psychological disorders.

The human brain contains a little over 80-odd billion neurons, each joining with other cells to create trillions of connections called synapses.

The numbers are mind-boggling, but the way each individual nerve cell contributes to the brain’s functions is still an area of contention.

In fact, a study published in 2017 has overturned a 100-year-old assumption on what exactly makes a neuron ‘fire’, posing new mechanisms behind certain neurological disorders.