Neurology
Sebastian Seung: I am my connectome
Sebastian Seung introduces the concept of 'connectome' the connections between your neurons. This is a good introduction of neuroscience. by Nov 5
Diffusion MRI image of the brain
Image by Henning U. Voss / Nicholas D. Schiff 2008 by Dec 23
VS Ramachandran on your mind
Vilayanur Ramachandran shows how studying brain damage to specific areas can give us insight in the brain's functions and the location of those functions. It connects to Suengs view of a connectome and provides an alternative method of discovering the neurons' connections. by Nov 5
VS Ramachandran: The neurons that shaped civilization
Vilayanur Ramachadran describes a type of neurons he calls 'mirror neurons'. Mirror neurons fire not only when experiencing a 'stimulus' but also when observing someone else experiencing the stimulus. They allow us to learn complex social behaviours. This presentation expands on his previous talk "VS Ramachandran on your mind" and shows results found by learning from brain damage. Vilayanur Ramachadran claims humans devellopped these mirror neurons about 100.000 years ago and afterwards human culture devellopped ashtonishingly fast; but compare this to "Susan Savage-Rumbaugh on apes". by Nov 5
Susan Savage-Rumbaugh on apes
Susan Savage-Rumbaugh shows that language, complex tasks, and other intelligent behaviour. She has tought bonobo apes. This contradicts VS Ramachandran's claim in "VS Ramachandran: The neurons that shaped civilization" that humans 100.000 years ago devellopped 'mirror neurons' which led to culture. (The bonobo species probablely orginated 1.5-2.0 mln. years ago, when the Congo river separates them from their chimpansee cousins.) by Nov 5
Oliver Sacks: What hallucination reveals about our minds | Video
Oliver Sacks talks about the Bonnet syndrome: visual hallucinations caused by randomly firing neurons. The Bonnet hallucinations are distinct from psychotic hallucinations and hallucinations caused by 'temporal lobe epilepsy'. Dr. Sacks discusses how neuron firing in specific areas, cells, or groups of cells, as observed with fMRI, cause different types of images. Dr. Sacks' presentation connects to the overview VS Ramachandran gave about low-tech clinical neurology[VS Ramachandran on your mind | TED]. Would Christopher de Charms' approach of exercising the brain while viewing it via fMRI[Christopher deCharms looks inside the brain | TED] help patients with Bonnet syndrome? by Dec 1
Charles Limb: Your brain on improv
Charles Limb studies the neurology of music and creativity. In this TED talk he shows fMRI contrast maps of his experiments with people playing memorised music versus people improvising music. He shows that the activity in the lateral prefrontal cortex, which is involved in self-monitoring, lowers. And activity in the medial prefrontal cortex goes up. Next he shows what happens when musicians improvise together. The language areas, i.e. Broca's area, became more active. The third experiment is about memorised rap versus freestyle rap: then you see activity in the visual areas and motor coordination areas, so lots of brains areas aree active in creative rapping. by Jan 9
Christopher deCharms looks inside the brain
Christopher de Charms demonstrates how accurate, fine-grained and real-time fMRI allows one to look at him own brain in action. This allows a person to actively exercise his brain. This supplements Ramachandran's [VS Ramachandran: on your mind] clinical research and treatment. DeCharms' work also allows using Gero Miesenboeck's approach [Gero Miesenboeck: reengineers the brain] on ungenetically altered humans. by Nov 7
Functional magnetic resonance imaging
Researcher checking fMRI images Functional magnetic resonance imaging or functional MRI ( fMRI ) is an MRI procedure that measures brain activity by detecting associated changes in blood flow. [ 1 ] This technique relies on the fact that cerebral blood flow and neuronal activation are coupled. When an area of the brain is in use, blood flow to that region also increases. The primary form of fMRI uses the blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) contrast, [ 2 ] discovered by Seiji Ogawa . This is a type of specialized brain and body scan used to map neural activity in the brain or spinal cord of humans or animals by imaging the change in blood flow ( hemodynamic response ) related to energy use by brain cells. [ 3 ] Since the early 1990s, fMRI has come to dominate brain mapping research because it does not require people to undergo shots, surgery, or to ingest substances, or be exposed to radiation. [ 4 ] Another method of obtaining contrast is arterial spin labeling. [ 5 ]
Diffusion MRI
Diffusion MRI (or dMRI ) is a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) method which came into existence in the mid-1980s. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] It allows the mapping of the diffusion process of molecules, mainly water, in biological tissues , in vivo and non-invasively. Molecular diffusion in tissues is not free, but reflects interactions with many obstacles, such as macromolecules , fibers, membranes , etc. Water molecule diffusion patterns can therefore reveal microscopic details about tissue architecture, either normal or in a diseased state. The first diffusion MRI images of the normal and diseased brain were made public in 1985. [ 4 ] [ 5 ] Since then, diffusion MRI has been extraordinarily successful. Its main clinical application has been in the study and treatment of neurological disorders, especially for the management of patients with acute stroke .Tan Le: A headset that reads your brainwaves
One might use Tan Le's headset as an ongoing from of Christopher deCharms' [Christopher deCharms looks inside the brain | TED] realtime brainintrospection to exercise the brain. Or does the 'crudeness' of the headset's signals compared to those of fMRI and EEG make such a use impossible? by Jan 12
Electroencephalography
Epileptic spike and wave discharges monitored with EEG Electroencephalography ( EEG ) is the recording of electrical activity along the scalp . EEG measures voltage fluctuations resulting from ionic current flows within the neurons of the brain . [ 1 ] In clinical contexts, EEG refers to the recording of the brain's spontaneous electrical activity over a short period of time, usually 20–40 minutes, as recorded from multiple electrodes placed on the scalp . Diagnostic applications generally focus on the spectral content of EEG, that is, the type of neural oscillations that can be observed in EEG signals. In neurology , the main diagnostic application of EEG is in the case of epilepsy , as epileptic activity can create clear abnormalities on a standard EEG study. [ 2 ] A secondary clinical use of EEG is in the diagnosis of coma , encephalopathies , and brain death .Henry Markram builds a brain in a supercomputer
Henry Markram simulates a brain's neurons and the neurons' connections (ie. a 'connectome' cf. "Sebastian Seung: i am my connectome") on a supercomputer. A striking difference with AI artificial neural networks is a each neuron and its bochemistry is simulated on a processor, whereas AI uses an (over) simplified model of a few bytes as a neuron and simple caltulations (adding, multiplying) as signal exchange. Markram's technology driven approach differs from Ramachandran's low-tech (mirrors in a box) clinical approach in "Ramachandran: on your mind". by Nov 7
Kwabena Boahen on a computer that works like the brain
Kwabena Boahen argues that the miniaturisation of transistors leads to them becomming more like synapses and less like electrical components: sometimes they don't output a current when they should and sometimes they leak a current when they shouldn't. Chipdesign neeeds a paradigm shift: not accurate central processesing the bottleneck but more connections with fuzy results. Compare this to TED talks about the brain by Henry Markram and others. by Dec 22
Gero Miesenboeck reengineers a brain
Gero Miesenboeck studies the brain by controlling it. He claims that controlling and modifying is the best way to decrypt a code. Somehow he genetically re-engineered some neurons in the brain to fire on light signals. Using this method he found the 'inner critic' of fruit flies and was able to 'teach' them. ¿I'm currious about how one can encode in DNA where a given altered neuron ends up? by Nov 7
Jeff Hawkins on how brain science will change computing
Jeff Hawkins argues for devellopping a theory about neurology instead of gathering more data. He argues that we should view intelligence as memory and prediction instead of behaviour. by Dec 8
Dan Dennett on our consciousness
The naturalist theory of consciousness is not the only one and its something Hawkins and Dennett are struggling to answer because its one of the most pervasive and unsettling ones in Philosophy. His book "consciousness explained" is a long way from ending the debate. Dennett is an excellent writer, however. by Dec 8
Dan Dennett argues that each person should give up his beliefs about being an expert about his/her own consiousness. He shows that the mind does tricks without you being aware how it does them. Dennett's argument supports Hawkins's case for giving up common misconceptions to form a theory of mind. by Dec 8
Michael Merzenich on re-wiring the brain
Michael Merzenich talks about the brain's ability to change itself. Many neurologists distinguishe two phases: the 'critical period' and refinement. In the critical period the brain sets up its processing so that it can act selectively on sounds, images, and other signals in its environment. During the refinement period, which lasts a lifetime, the brain uses behaviour control (reinforment learing) to lean skills. The brain makes representations of temporally correlated events (sensatations) that affect its body; it does this via physical change. by Dec 27
Pawan Sinha on how brains learn to see
Pawan Sinha's disagreees with the theory that the brains critical phase ends after the first year (see [Michael Merzenich on re-wiring the brain | TED]). His clinical results show that children can learn to see after their brain's supposed critical phase has ended. Pawan has learned that the brain first 'sees' coloured 'pixels', then it recognizes shapes (called visual integration). Movement helps the brain to distinguish these shapes. Pawan Sinha asks "could the impairment in visual intregration be the manifestation of something underneath of dynamic information processing deficiency in autism?" by Dec 27
Beau Lotto: Optical illusions show how we see
Beau Lotto uses optical illusions to demonstrate how our brain uses context to decode visual signals. by Jan 12
Neuron
Neuron viewed with an electron microscope
Image by Thomas Deerinck / Mark Ellisman by Dec 23
Neuron's cobweb-like cytoskeleton (its interior scaffolding)
Image by Bernd Knoll at the University of Tubingen by Dec 23
Brain Explorer - Brain Atlas - Introduction
The central nervous system (CNS) consists of the brain and the spinal cord, immersed in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). Weighing about 3 pounds (1.4 kilograms), the brain consists of three main structures: the cerebrum, the cerebellum and the brainstem. Cerebrum - divided into two hemispheres (left and right), each consists of four lobes (frontal, parietal, occipital and temporal). The outer layer of the brain is known as the cerebral cortex or the ‘grey matter’.
Dick Swaab Wij zijn ons brein - UitgeverijContact
'Hét standaardwerk over het brein, pocht de uitgever, en dat is niets teveel gezegd… Een bijzonder rijk en vakkundig geschreven boek.' – Trouw ‘Hersenen zijn hot. Ook dit boek is er weer een om te kopen, lezen en te bewaren.
A book (in Dutch) by Dick Swaab. Dick Swaab takes the reader thruogh various phases in life and tells what effects the brain and hormones produced in the brain have. The book is well written and easy to understand (given that you can read Dutch). by Jan 12
Hersenletsel achtergronden en aanpak / druk 1, H.J. Eilander | Nederlandse
Book about traumatic brain injury (in Dutch); its backgrounds and how to cope with it. by Dec 8
My first steps into the field of neurology. It's a subtree of my 'Assistive technology'-tree, since my desire to learn more about neurology is driven by the question "how can i help people with traumatic brain injury while using my skills in software engineering, omputer science, and artificial intelligence?". by kaspervandenberg Dec 3