Important research happening. thank you SENS. if you don’t know what SENS is, take a moment to check them out.
Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
Category: neuroscience – Page 844
Neuroscientists Can Now Design False Memories and Plant Them Into Animal Brains
Neuroscientists-can-now-design-false-memories-and-plant-them-into-animal-brains.
Jake Anderson, The Mind Unleashed Waking Times
Scientists have known for some time that specific circuits in the brain react to experiences and encode those same experiences into our minds as memories. These memories are central to our identity and the narrative we construct about ourselves and the world around us.
In past experiments, neuroscientists have been able to partially transfer memories between rodents but they have never wholesale manufactured false memories—until now.
Study identifies brain stiffness as crucial for neurogenesis
A research team has shown that a key difference between neurogenic and non-neurogenic tissues is cross-linking proteins causing stiffness, a discovery that could be used to create new brain injury therapies.
Researchers compared the proteomes of regions in the brain that are neurogenic (neural stem cell niches) and those that are not (cerebral cortex). The scientists hope that by establishing how these tissues are different, future therapies for brain injury may be able to activate tissues to produce new neurons to repair the brain.
Antidepressant Microbes In Soil: How Soil Makes Your Brain Happy
Antidepressant-soil.
Soil microbes have been found to have similar effects on the brain as prozac, without the negative side effects and potential for chemical dependency and withdrawal.
It turns out getting in the garden and getting dirty is a natural antidepressant due to unique microbes in healthy organic soil. Working and playing in soil can actually make you happier and healthier.
What gardeners and farmers have talked about for millennia is now verifiable by science. Feeling like your garden or farm is your happy place is no coincidence!
Scientists Plugged a Bionic Eye Directly Into This Woman’s Brain
Bernardeta Gómez has been blind for 16 years. But using a bionic eye developed by Spanish neuroengineer Eduardo Fernandez, she was able to see again — without using her biological eyes at all.
The system, which Fernandez is honing at his University of Miguel Hernandez lab, comprises a few different parts, as detailed in a newly-published story in MIT Technology Review.
First, there’s a pair of glasses fitted with a camera that connects to a computer. The computer translates the camera’s live video feed into electronic signals. Those signals are then sent via a cable to a port that Fernandez surgically embedded in the back of Gómez’s skull. That port connects to an implant in the visual cortex of Gómez’s brain.
Embrace human genome editing
Imagine then, the emancipatory potential of genome editing for these millions.
Realizing this potential, however, will require that genome editing meet with societal approval. The typical response right now when you talk to someone about genetic engineering or reproductive technology is a reference to ‘designer babies,’ eugenics, Nazism, and other evils. These arguments have a very powerful emotional hold over many people, but in my opinion, they simply don’t stand up to scrutiny.
Numerous traits, both physical and mental, are too complex to ever be able to engineer, and a Gattaca-like future of ‘designer babies’ is probably just as improbable as time-travel. No serious scientist or ethicist is advocating for government mandated ‘genetic correction’ of the sort Nazism or eugenics implies. As for physical appearance, everyone has their own ideas about the ‘physical ideal.’ Not every visitor to a cosmetic surgeon comes out looking Northern European.