With an Artificial Memory Chip, Rats Can Remember and Forget At the Touch of a Button. A new brain implant tested on rats restored lost memories at the flick of a switch, heralding a possible treatment method for patients with Alzheimer's disease, stroke or amnesia. Such a "neural prosthesis" could someday be used to facilitate the memory-forming process and help patients remember. The device can mimic the brain's own neural signals, thereby serving as a surrogate for a piece of the brain associated with forming memories. If there is sufficient neural activity to trace, the device can restore memories after they have been lost.
If it's used with a normal, functioning hippocampus, the device can even enhance memory. In the study, scientists at Wake Forest University and the University of Southern California trained rats to learn a task, pressing one lever after another to receive water. In a series of tests, the rats pressed one lever and were then distracted.
The team attached electrodes to the rats' brains, connected to two areas in the hippocampus, called CA1 and CA3. Neuroscience: Brain buzz. The New Artificial Life (Alife) Database. Scientists extract images directly from brain ::: Pink Tentacle. Researchers from Japan's ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories have developed new brain analysis technology that can reconstruct the images inside a person's mind and display them on a computer monitor, it was announced on December 11. According to the researchers, further development of the technology may soon make it possible to view other people's dreams while they sleep.
The scientists were able to reconstruct various images viewed by a person by analyzing changes in their cerebral blood flow. Using a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine, the researchers first mapped the blood flow changes that occurred in the cerebral visual cortex as subjects viewed various images held in front of their eyes. Subjects were shown 400 random 10 x 10 pixel black-and-white images for a period of 12 seconds each. For now, the system is only able to reproduce simple black-and-white images. But Dr. The research results appear in the December 11 issue of US science journal Neuron. The Brain Is Ready for Its Close-Up | Biotechnology. Neuroscience, free will and determinism: 'I'm just a machine'
What does this mean in terms of free will? "We don't have free will, in the spiritual sense. What you're seeing is the last output stage of a machine. There are lots of things that happen before this stage – plans, goals, learning – and those are the reasons we do more interesting things than just waggle fingers. But there's no ghost in the machine. " The conclusions are shocking: if we are part of the universe, and obey its laws, it's hard to see where free will comes into it.
"If you see a light go green, it may mean press the accelerator; but there are lots of situations where it doesn't mean that: if the car in front hasn't moved, for example. Slowly, however, we are learning more about the details of that complexity. "What happens if someone commits a crime, and it turns out that there's a lesion in that brain area? This runs shockingly contrary to the sense of freedom that we feel in terms of controlling our actions, on which we base our whole sense of self and system of morality.
Sixth Sense Technology TED. TED sixth sense technology. Japanese Dream Recording Machine.