Category: neuroscience – Page 880
Calling an Illness “Psychosomatic” Doesn’t Mean It’s Imaginary
Placebo effects, exercise highs, getting sick when you’re stressed out—the popular press and the scientific literature alike are replete with examples of how the mind or mental processes influence our health and well-being. This “mind-body connection” is essential for normal organ function and also is viewed as the basis for psychosomatic disorders. Yet the concept that our thoughts can influence the function of a variety of organ systems is often viewed with some skepticism,…
Recent experiments have begun mapping the neuronal connections between mind and body like never before.
America’s most widely consumed oil causes genetic changes in the brain
New UC Riverside research shows soybean oil not only leads to obesity and diabetes, but could also affect neurological conditions like autism, Alzheimer’s disease, anxiety, and depression.
Used for fast food frying, added to packaged foods, and fed to livestock, soybean oil is by far the most widely produced and consumed edible oil in the U.S., according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In all likelihood, it is not healthy for humans.
It certainly is not good for mice. The new study, published this month in the journal Endocrinology, compared mice fed three different diets high in fat: soybean oil, soybean oil modified to be low in linoleic acid, and coconut oil.
What Neuroscience Can Teach Us About Aging Better
“A neuroscientist explains how our brains age and provides tips for aging with more vitality and happiness.”
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About 13 years ago, I watched my very vital mother die a slow death from Lewy-Body dementia. For me, it was a wakeup call. If there were anything I could do to stay healthy myself—to avoid the slow decline of an aging brain—I wanted to do it. But what really helps us stay sharp longer? And how can we separate fad ideas from solid, evidence-based advice around aging?
Enter Daniel Levitin’s new book, Successful Aging: A Neuroscientist Explores the Power and Potential of Our Lives.
Levitin is a neuroscientist, psychologist, professor emeritus at McGill University in Montreal, and faculty fellow at UC Berkeley. His highly researched book provides fascinating insights into how our early childhood experiences, personalities, social relationships, and lifestyles all drive our brain’s development, dispelling stubborn myths around the inevitability of cognitive decline. Arguing against ageism and highlighting the unique gifts of older people, Levitin shows us what we can all do to become sharper, happier, and wiser as we age.
Why Gene Editors Like CRISPR/Cas May Be a Game-Changer for Neuroweapons
This year marks the Eighth Review Conference (RevCon) of the Biological Toxins and Weapons Convention (BWC). At the same time, ongoing international efforts to further and more deeply investigate the brain’s complex neuronal circuitry are creating unprecedented capabilities to both understand and control neurological processes of thought, emotion, and behavior. These advances have tremendous promise for human health, but the potential for their misuse has also been noted, with most discussions centering on research and development of agents that are addressed by existing BWC and Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) proscriptions. In this article, we discuss the dual-use possibilities fostered by employing emergent biotechnologic techniques and tools—specifically, novel gene editors like clustered regular interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)—to produce neuroweapons. Based on our analyses, we posit the strong likelihood that development of genetically modified or created neurotropic substances will advance apace with other gene-based therapeutics, and we assert that this represents a novel—and realizable—path to creating potential neuroweapons. In light of this, we propose that it will be important to re-address current categorizations of weaponizable tools and substances, so as to better inform and generate tractable policy to enable improved surveillance and governance of novel neuroweapons.
Keywords: : CRISPR, Gene editing, Neuroweapon, Neurotherapeutic pathways, Dual-use neuroscience, Biosecurity policy.
T his year marks the Eighth Review Conference (RevCon) of the Biological Toxins and Weapons Convention (BWC), the purpose of which is to ensure that the convened parties’ directives continue to be relevant to and viable for prohibiting the development, production, and stockpiling of biological weapons in the face of newly emerging scientific advancements and biotechnologies. Apropos of issues raised at previous RevCons and elsewhere, there are growing concerns about current and future weaponization of neurobiological agents and tools (ie, “neuroweapons”1–6).
How Researchers Used AI to Better Understand Biological Vision
A few years back, DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis famously prophesized that AI and neuroscience will positively feed into each other in a “virtuous circle.” If realized, this would fundamentally expand our insight into intelligence, both machine and human.
We’ve already seen some proofs of concept, at least in the brain-to-AI direction. For example, memory replay, a biological mechanism that fortifies our memories during sleep, also boosted AI learning when abstractly appropriated into deep learning models. Reinforcement learning, loosely based on our motivation circuits, is now behind some of AI’s most powerful tools.
Hassabis is about to be proven right again.
Ultrafast camera takes 1 trillion frames per second of transparent objects and phenomena
A little over a year ago, Caltech’s Lihong Wang developed the world’s fastest camera, a device capable of taking 10 trillion pictures per second. It is so fast that it can even capture light traveling in slow motion.
But sometimes just being quick is not enough. Indeed, not even the fastest camera can take pictures of things it cannot see. To that end, Wang, Bren Professor of Medical Engineering and Electrical Engineering, has developed a new camera that can take up to 1 trillion pictures per second of transparent objects. A paper about the camera appears in the January 17 issue of the journal Science Advances.
The camera technology, which Wang calls phase-sensitive compressed ultrafast photography (pCUP), can take video not just of transparent objects but also of more ephemeral things like shockwaves and possibly even of the signals that travel through neurons.