Inside Paul Allen's Plan to Reverse-Engineer the Human Brain - Wired Science In 2003, Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen spent $100 million to build the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle. With laser-equipped microscopes and custom brain-slicers, the institute has mapped the brains of mice, monkeys, and humans, showing which genes are turned on—and where—to better understand vision, memory, autism, and other neural phenomena. Last year Allen ponied up another $300 million to aim the institute at a narrower but more ambitious goal: a complete understanding of how the mouse brain interprets visual information. To succeed, they’ll have to go beyond static gene maps and learn how to watch a living brain in action. The new method will track electrical activity in neurons—not just in one mouse but many. Of all the things you could have invested in, why brain research? Well, as a programmer you’re working with very simple structures compared to the brain. How do you think your investment has paid off so far? Oh, I think it’s had a real impact.
The Math Formula That Tells Us How Long Everything Will Live Brains flush toxic waste in sleep, including Alzheimer’s-linked protein, study of mice finds Scientists say this nightly self-clean by the brain provides a compelling biological reason for the restorative power of sleep. “Sleep puts the brain in another state where we clean out all the byproducts of activity during the daytime,” said study author and University of Rochester neurosurgeon Maiken Nedergaard. Those byproducts include beta-amyloid protein, clumps of which form plaques found in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients. Staying up all night could prevent the brain from getting rid of these toxins as efficiently, and explain why sleep deprivation has such strong and immediate consequences. Too little sleep causes mental fog, crankiness, and increased risks of migraine and seizure. Rats deprived of all sleep die within weeks. Although as essential and universal to the animal kingdom as air and water, sleep is a riddle that has baffled scientists and philosophers for centuries. One line of thinking was that sleep helps animals to conserve energy by forcing a period of rest.
The top 10 classic fears in literature By Marianna Torgovnick It’s the story that inspired Moby Dick. In 1819, the crewmembers of the whaleship Essex watched in horror as their boat was struck by a sperm whale and began to flood. Forced into small boats with little food or water, they had three options: they could head to the nearest land, the Marquesas Islands, believed to be populated by cannibals; they could make a run for Hawaii and pray to escape the massive storms of the season; or they could attempt to catch a current to take them 1,500 miles to the coast of South America and risk running out of supplies on the way. As author Karen Thompson Walker shares in today’s talk, given at TEDGlobal 2012, the crew took option three because of the vivid, terrifying images that options one and two brought to life in their minds. “Fear is a kind of unintentional storytelling that we’re all born knowing how to do,” says Walker. So what do people fear most? Fear #1: Death, death, death—did I mention death?
Dopamine regulates the motivation to act Printer friendly version Share 10 January 2013 Asociación RUVID The widespread belief that dopamine regulates pleasure could go down in history with the latest research results on the role of this neurotransmitter. Researchers have proved that it regulates motivation, causing individuals to initiate and persevere to obtain something either positive or negative. The neuroscience journal Neuron publishes an article by researchers at the Universitat Jaume I of Castellón that reviews the prevailing theory on dopamine and poses a major paradigm shift with applications in diseases related to lack of motivation and mental fatigue and depression, Parkinson's, multiple sclerosis, fibromyalgia, etc. and diseases where there is excessive motivation and persistence as in the case of addictions. Studies had shown that dopamine is released by pleasurable sensations but also by stress, pain or loss. Application for depression and addiction Attached files Dopamine
Virtues of Cognitive Workout: New Research Reveals Neurological Underpinnings of Intelligence | Guest Blog How much does environment influence intelligence? Several years ago University of Virginia Professor Eric Turkheimer demonstrated that growing up in an impoverished and chaotic household suppresses I.Q. – without nurture, innate advantages vanish. What about genes? They matter too. A 2008 paper out of the University of Michigan turned all of this on its head. This brings me to a brand new paper recently published in the journal Neuroscience by DRDC Toronto researcher and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto-Scarborough, Oshin Vartanian. To answer these questions Vartanian and his team gathered 34 participants and assigned each of them to either an experimental or control group. For the cognitive training portion of the study participants took part in three training sessions on separate days. Vartanian and his fellow researchers found that the results mostly confirmed the original hypotheses.
Alzheimer's breakthrough hailed as 'turning point' Media playback is unsupported on your device The discovery of the first chemical to prevent the death of brain tissue in a neurodegenerative disease has been hailed as the "turning point" in the fight against Alzheimer's disease. More work is needed to develop a drug that could be taken by patients. But scientists say a resulting medicine could treat Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Huntington's and other diseases. In tests on mice, the Medical Research Council showed all brain cell death from prion disease could be prevented. Prof Roger Morris, from King's College London, said: "This finding, I suspect, will be judged by history as a turning point in the search for medicines to control and prevent Alzheimer's disease." He told the BBC a cure for Alzheimer's was not imminent but: "I'm very excited, it's the first proof in any living animal that you can delay neurodegeneration. "The world won't change tomorrow, but this is a landmark study." Cells starve 'Very dramatic' Side effects are an issue.
The Future of Existential Psychology: Humanistic Psychology’s Chief Task: To Reset Psychology on its Rightful Existential Base | The New Existentialists Posted on 14 Feb | 3 comments Photo by NASA. While some in the field continue to believe that psychology proceeds purely on the basis of positivistic science (e.g., Baker, McFall, & Shoham, 2008), I contend that this is patently naïve. The first time the field was reset was at the point where its standing as an explicit philosophy was replaced by its “formalization” as an explicit laboratory science. The third major period of philosophical resetting was the usurpation of the psychoanalytic model by the behavioral model, where only overt and measurable human actions were considered the domain of legitimacy. So where does that bring us to at present? I believe that psychology should now be reset on its rightful base in existence. In a nutshell then: The chief task for humanistic psychology going forward is to reset psychology on its rightful existential-humanistic base. Consider the following: Mystery is a place where religion and science meet. Dogma is a place where they part.
Humans, Version 3.0 Credit: Flickr user Suvcon Where are we humans going, as a species? If science fiction is any guide, we will genetically evolve like in X-Men, become genetically engineered as in Gattaca, or become cybernetically enhanced like General Grievous in Star Wars. All of these may well be part of the story of our future, but I’m not holding my breath. The first of these—natural selection—is impracticably slow, and there’s a plausible case to be made that natural selection has all but stopped acting on us. Genetic engineering could engender marked changes in us, but it requires a scientific bridge between genotypes—an organism’s genetic blueprints—and phenotypes, which are the organisms themselves and their suite of abilities. And machine-enhancement is part of our world even today, manifesting in the smartphones and desktop computers most of us rely on each day. Simply put, none of these scenarios are plausible for the immediate future. But how do I know this is feasible? And culture’s trick?
How does the Anthropic Principle change the meaning of the universe? I'm agreeing with Mokkari because we have overwhelming evidence that his or her statement is true. People still hate evolution despite all the evidence for it. People used to hate the idea of an ancient and vast universe, despite all the evidence. People used to hate the Big Bang, despite all the evidence for it. "To me, the idea that we resulted from pure chance sounds about as ludicrous as winning the lottery without even participating,..." First, this part of your statement indicates a complete misunderstanding of how things actually happen in cosmology and evolution. Just because some of us don't like this, doesn't mean it's not true. "...but I'm not sure if that's just because I highly enjoy the idea that we were an inevitable result of a Universe of this configuration." Sorry, but we have no evidence that humans are inevitable. The early Earth was a highly complex, nonlinear, dynamic system and very sensitive to change in initial conditions.
How and where imagination occurs in human brains Philosophers and scientists have long puzzled over where human imagination comes from. In other words, what makes humans able to create art, invent tools, think scientifically and perform other incredibly diverse behaviors? The answer, Dartmouth researchers conclude in a new study, lies in a widespread neural network -- the brain's "mental workspace" -- that consciously manipulates images, symbols, ideas and theories and gives humans the laser-like mental focus needed to solve complex problems and come up with new ideas. Their findings, titled "Network structure and dynamics of the mental workspace," appear the week of Sept. 16 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "Our findings move us closer to understanding how the organization of our brains sets us apart from other species and provides such a rich internal playground for us to think freely and creatively," says lead author Alex Schlegel , a graduate student in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences.
A Fool-Proof Method for Making the Right Decision Every Time I wrote this for the fence-sitters. Whenever I’m faced with making a decision, this is what I do to ensure that I make the right choice every time. If you use this method, you will never make a wrong decision. Step 1: Get clear on what the options are. Step 2: Close your eyes and take three deep breaths into your lower belly. Step 3: Bring to mind your first option. Step 4: Notice how your body feels. Step 5: If you feel expansive when you focus on the first option, it’s a yes! Step 6: Go through steps 3-5 for each option you have. Your body will tell you what is right for you. Cool, right? Now, you may ask, what if I feel fear? Only your body will truly tell you which one it is. Fear often comes up when we’re about to do something that takes us out of our comfort zone. If you truly tune in to the feeling in your body, the fear of leaving your comfort zone will feel expansive. And remember: None of the good stuff happens on the fence. Life doesn’t move forward on the fence.
Crows could be the key to understanding alien intelligence But seriously, Annalee.... We're all ready for you to write the definitive science fiction novel about crows. In fact, you've been teasing us all far too long now :-) Write it already! Flagged I'm just gonna leave this here.... Does Math Exist Outside the Human Brain? Big Ideas In this episode of the Idea Channel‘s always-brilliant explanation of how and why the world works, the focus is on math, and the mind-bending question: Who created math, anyway? “Unlike physics, chemistry, and biology we can’t see it, smell it, or even directly observe it in the universe. And so that has made a lot of really smart people ask, does it actually even EXIST?!?! Similar to the tree falling in the forest, there are people who believe that if no person existed to count, math wouldn’t be around at ALL!!!! Related Explore: math, PBS Idea Channel