During the demo, Thync cofounder and CEO Isy Goldwasser explained that the module wasn directly stimulating neurons in my brain (that would be too damn weird for me to try,
which then activates the instinctual fight-or-flight response in your brain to indirectly affect emotional response.
Eventually, the team will work on creating versions that can perform biopsies in the brain bloodstream, and even more locations throughout the body
if CO2 levels climbed high enough to degrade brain function. If youe ever felt suffocated in a cramped meeting, youe not crazy.
#Google s Brain-Inspired Software Describes What It Sees in Complex Images Experimental Google software that can describe a complex scene could lead to better image search
The new software is the latest product of Google research into using large collections of simulated neurons to process data (see 0 Breakthrough Technologies 2013:
Google researchers created the software through a kind of digital brain surgery, plugging together two neural networks developed separately for different tasks.
#Google's Secretive Deepmind Startup Unveils a Neural Turing Machine""One of the great challenges of neuroscience is to understand the short-term working memory in the human brain.
Today Google s secretive Deepmind startup which it bought for $400 million earlier this year unveils a prototype computer that attempts to mimic some of the properties of the human brain s short-term working memory.
In the 1950s the American cognitive psychologist George Miller carried out one of the more famous experiments in the history of brain science.
Miller was interested in the capacity of the human brain s working memory and set out to measure it with the help of a large number of students who he asked to carry out simple memory tasks.
But however much information a single chunk represents the human brain can store only about seven of them in its working memory.
The human brain has trouble holding this many chunks in its working memory. In cognitive science the ability to understand the components of a sentence
They begin by redefining the nature of a neural network. Until now neural networks have been interconnected patterns of neurons
In particular the human brain performs a clever trick to make sense of complex arguments. An interesting question that follows from Miller s early work is this:
Miller s answer is that the brain uses a trick known as a recoding. Let s go back to our example of the book
and understood the first sentence your brain stores those seven chunks in a way that is available as a single chunk in the next sentence.
Our brain automatically knows that it means: the book that is a thrilling read with a complex plot and lifelike characters.
To Miller the brain s ability to recode in this way was one of the keys to artificial intelligence.
He believed that until a computer could reproduce this ability it could never match the performance of the human brain.
Headsets like the Oculus Rift trick your brain into perceiving depth by showing different images to each eye,
and other researchers on ways to allow bionic limbs to be controlled directly by the nervous system
Whereas brain-machine interfaces would require invasive surgery for brain implants he wants to connect electronic devices to the peripheral nerves at the site of the injury allowing people to control bionic limbs with their existing nerves
and powered by a wearable battery pack is the first exoskeleton that can actually lower the metabolic costs of walking as demonstrated in a study published this May in the Journal of Neuroengineering and Rehabilitation.
#Nobel for Brain s Location Code The Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine went to three researchers who made key discoveries about how the brain represents an animal s position in space orienting it
Half the $1. 1 million prize was awarded to John O Keefe who discovered cells in the hippocampus of rats that fired off in reaction to specific places the animals were in.
An important aspect the Nobel-winning work was that it was among the first to directly observe the so-called codes by which neurons express information in this case by altering how quickly it fires.
In Cracking the Brain s Codes from our July/August issue researchers Christof Koch and Gary Marcus foreshadowed today s Nobel awards:
whose lab has measured from dozens of brain cells at once producing striking videos like the one below showing place neurons firing as a rat moves through a maze.
In July DARPA gave out $40 million in awards to try to develop brain implants that would help brain-injured soldiers recover lost memories
But the brain has 86 billion neurons and scientists still can t claim to have broken more than bits
or firing of neurons in a rat s brain when it reaches a familiar place is just part of the story according to Koch and Marcus s
Izhikevich s startup Brain Corporation based in San diego has developed an operating system for robots called Brainos to make that possible.
Brain Corporation hopes to make money by providing its software to entrepreneurs and companies that want to bring intelligent low-cost robots to market.
Later this year Brain Corporation will start offering a ready-made circuit board with a smartphone processor
Building a trainable robot would involve connecting that brain to a physical robot body. The chip on that board is made by mobile processor company Qualcomm
which is an investor in Brain Corporation. At the Mobile Developers Conference in San francisco last week a wheeled robot with twin cameras powered by one of Brain Corporation s circuit boards was trained live on stage In one demo the robot called
Eyerover was steered along a specific route around a chair sofa and other obstacles a few times. It then repeated the route by itself.
Brain Corporation s software is based on a combination of several different artificial intelligence techniques. Much of the power comes from using artificial neural networks
which are inspired by the way brain cells communicate says Izhikevich. Brain Corporation was previously collaborating with Qualcomm on new forms of chip that write artificial neural networks into silicon.
Those neuromorphic chips as they are known are purely research projects for the moment. But they might eventually offer a more powerful and efficient way to run software like Brainos.
Brain Corporation previously experimented with reinforcement learning where a robot starts out randomly trying different behaviors
and a trainer rewards it with a virtual treat when it does the right thing.
#Wireless Power for Minuscule Medical Implants Medical implants like pacemakers deep brain stimulators and cochlear implants could someday be joined by still more bioelectronic gadgets devices that regulate insulin levels control
Kip Ludwig the program director for neural engineering at the National Institute of Neurological disorders and Stroke at the National institutes of health says Poon s method is promising but years from any clinical application.
#IBM Chip Processes Data Similar to the Way Your Brain Does A new kind of computer chip,
takes design cues from the wrinkled outer layer of the human brain. Though it is no match for a conventional microprocessor at crunching numbers,
IBM Synapse chip processes information using a network of just over one million eurons, which communicate with one another using electrical spikess actual neurons do.
The chip uses the same basic components as today commercial chipsilicon transistors. But its transistors are configured to mimic the behavior of both neurons and the connectionsynapsesetween them.
The Synapse chip breaks with a design known as the Von neumann architecture that has underpinned computer chips for decades.
Although researchers have been experimenting with chips modeled on brainsnown as neuromorphic chipsince the late 1980s,
until now all have been many times less complex, and not powerful enough to be practical (see hinking in Silicon.
IBM researchers are now experimenting with connecting multiple Synapse chips together, and they hope to build a supercomputer using thousands.
When data is fed into a Synapse chip it causes a stream of spikes, and its neurons react with a storm of further spikes.
The just over one million neurons on the chip are organized into 4, 096 identical blocks of 250,
an arrangement inspired by the structure of mammalian brains, which appear to be built out of repeating circuits of 100 to 250 neurons,
says Dharmendra Modha, chief scientist for brain-inspired computing at IBM. Programming the chip involves choosing
which neurons are connected, and how strongly they influence one another. To recognize cars in video, for example,
a programmer would work out the necessary settings on a simulated version of the chip, which would then be transferred over to the real thing.
In recent years, major breakthroughs in image analysis and speech recognition have come from using large, simulated neural networks to work on data (see eep Learning.
Although the new Synapse chip has more transistors than most desktop processors, or any chip IBM has made ever, with over five billion,
because its neurons and synapses intertwine the two functions. And it doesn work on data in a linear sequence of operations;
individual neurons simply fire when the spikes they receive from other neurons cause them to.
Horst Simon, the deputy director of Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and an expert in supercomputing, says that until now the industry has focused on tinkering with the Von neumann approach rather than replacing it,
Tomohiro Amemiya, a cognitive scientist at NTT Communication Science Laboratories, began the Buru-Navi project in 2004, originally as a way to research how the brain handles sensory illusions.
While zinc is more stable, the water-based electrolytes in conventional zinc batteries cause zinc to form dendrites,
a neuroscientist at the University of Southern California who has made key findings in the understanding of the brain processes underlying emotion. agree that emotion manipulation is quite common,
#Military Funds Brain-Computer Interfaces to Control Feelings Researcher Jose Carmena has worked for years training macaque monkeys to move computer cursors and robotic limbs with their minds.
He does so by implanting electrodes into their brains to monitor neural activity. Now, as part of a sweeping $70 million program funded by the U s. military,
to use brain implants to read, and then control, the emotions of mentally ill people. This week the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency,
to create electrical brain implants capable of treating seven psychiatric conditions, including addiction, depression, and borderline personality disorder.
The project builds on expanding knowledge about how the brain works; the development of microlectronic systems that can fit in the body;
and substantial evidence that thoughts and actions can be altered with well-placed electrical impulses to the brain. magine if
and then stimulate inside the brain to stop it from happening. The U s. faces an epidemic of mental illness among veterans,
for Systems-Based Neurotechnology for Emerging Therapies. e want to understand the brain networks in neuropsychiatric illness,
and then do precision signaling to the brain, says Sanchez. t something completely different and new.
which are the largest awards so far supporting President Obama BRAIN INITIATIVE, the brain-mapping program launched by the White house last year,
UCSF will receive as much as $26 million and Mass General up to $30 million. Companies including the medical device giant Medtronic and startup Cortera Neurotechnologies
a spin out from UC Berkeley wireless laboratory, will supply technology for the effort. Initial research will be in animals,
The research builds on a small but quickly growing market for devices that work by stimulating nerves, both inside the brain and outside it.
More than 110,000 Parkinson patients have received deep-brain stimulators built by Medtronic that control body tremors by sending electric pulses into the brain.
the U s. Food & Drug Administration approved Neuropace, the first implant that both records from the brain and stimulates it (see apping Seizures Away.
who have created several prototypes of miniaturized brain implants. Michel Maharbiz, a professor in Berkeley electrical engineering department, says the Obama brain initiative,
and now the DARPA money, has created a eeding frenzyaround new technology. t a great time to do tech for the brain,
he says. The new line of research has been dubbed ffective brain-computer interfacesby some, meaning electronic devices that alter feelings,
perhaps under direct control of a patient thoughts and wishes. asically, wee trying to build the next generation of psychiatric brain stimulators,
says Alik Widge, a researcher on the Mass General team. Darin Dougherty a psychiatrist who directs Mass General division of neurotherapeutics,
Fear is generated in the amygdala part of the brain involved in emotional memories. But it can be repressed by signals in another region,
the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. he idea would be to decode a signal in the amygdala showing overactivity,
In the 1970s, Yale university neuroscientist Jose Delgado showed he could cause people to feel emotions
Dougherty says a brain implant would only be considered for patients truly debilitated by mental illness, and who can be helped with drugs
Plachta and his team developed a micromachined cuff that wraps around the vagal nerve a nerve found in the neck that exchanges critical physiological information between the brain
and experimentally some psychiatric conditions (see Brain Pacemakers and Brain Implants Can Rest Misfiring Circuits).
They may be helpful even for such unlikely conditions as bladder dysfunction and rheumatoid arthritis (see Implanted Device Controls Rheumatoid arthritis).
It is well known that the nervous system can regulate the tension of the body s arteries
and convert those vibrations into electrical signals that are picked up by neurons in the auditory nerve
and passed along to the brain. Cochlear implants use up to 22 platinum electrodes to stimulate the auditory nerve;
and dynamics, says Gary Housley, a neuroscientist at the University of New south wales in Sydney, Australia, who led development of the new implant.
the associated neurons also degrade and shrink back into the cochlea. So there a physical gap between these atrophied neurons and the electrodes in the cochlear implant.
Improving the interface between nerves and electrodes should make it possible to use weaker electrical stimulation,
Peptides called neurotrophins can encourage regeneration of the neurons in the auditory nerve. Housley used a common process, called electroporation,
they injected the cochlea with a neurotrophin gene vector. Once the implant was placed, they applied an electroporation voltage using the electrodes.
but they use a virus to deliver the neurotrophin gene. Robert Shepherd, director of the Bionics Institute, a nonprofit medical research center in Melbourne, Australia, says electrode-directed gene therapy could improve other kinds of neural interfaces. herever wee applying electrodes,
whether it for deep-brain stimulation in Parkinson disease, or retinal implants for the blind, there is already neural damage,
scientists at the National Brain Research Centre (NBRC) have reported clinical evidence supporting the role of a novel biomarker in diagnosing Alzheimer's disease.
Glutathione (GSH), the biomarker, is a natural antioxidant that protects the brain from damage. Researchers claim that those suffering from the disease have reduced GSH as compared to the healthy individuals."
They claimed GSH estimation in Hippocampi, a region of the brain, yielded 100%specificity and sensitivity for distinguishing Alzheimer's disease and healthy controls."
"We propose that estimation of GSH affords a crucial noninvasive measure of Alzheimer's disease progression that could
can zap your brain to make you feel either calm or energised. Users stick the device, called Thync, onto their front temple.
Users can also adjust the strength of the brain-zapping. Each programme follows a pattern of greater and lesser intensity
The product uses"low levels of pulsed electrical energy to signal specific neural pathways, allowing users to dial up or dial down their stress responses and energy levels."
the small sensor devices send signals to the brain.""In a healthy foot, skin receptors carry out this function
"The sensors tell the brain there is a foot and the wearer has the impression that it rolls off the ground when he walks.
which the user directed with motor neurons previously connected to the lost limb. For the artificial leg, the principle remains the same except that the process works in reverse:
information is guided from the prothesis to the brain, rather than the other way around. In addition to increasing balance and safety, the prosthesis provides another remarkable function:
because the brain gets increasingly sensitive as it seeks information about the missing limb.""Plus the amputation is tied often to a traumatic experience like an accident or illness,
The advantage of the"feeling prosthesis"is that the brain once again receives real data and can stop its frantic search."
the small sensor devices send signals to the brain.""In a healthy foot, skin receptors carry out this function
"The sensors tell the brain there is a foot and the wearer has the impression that it rolls off the ground when he walks.
which the user directed with motor neurons previously connected to the lost limb. For the artificial leg, the principle remains the same except that the process works in reverse:
information is guided from the prothesis to the brain, rather than the other way around. In addition to increasing balance and safety, the prosthesis provides another remarkable function:
because the brain gets increasingly sensitive as it seeks information about the missing limb.""Plus the amputation is tied often to a traumatic experience like an accident or illness,
The advantage of the"feeling prosthesis"is that the brain once again receives real data and can stop its frantic search."
The condition also causes disproportionate growth that can lead to complications like bowed legs, sleep apnea and spinal cord compression,
A new technology that reads brainwaves to allow users to change TV channels with their mind has been developed in the UK.
For its latest project, the BBC took a simple low-cost brainwave reading headset and, working with UK-based user experience studio This Place, created a`Mind Control TV'prototype.
using nothing but their brainwaves. A first trial run saw 10 BBC staff members try out the app,
An important potential benefit that brainwave technology might offer is the ability to improve the accessibility of media content to people with disabilities.
For example, people affected by motor neurone disease or suffering locked-insyndrome may increasingly be able to use brain-computer interfaces to get a better experience of digital
and media services than they currently do. The electroencephalography (EEG) brainwave reading headset has one small sensor that rests on a user's forehead
and another on a clip that attaches to the ear. These sensors measure electrical activity in the brain.
In the case of this experimental app, a user can select either`concentration'or`meditation'as the brain control mechanism.
If the user selects`concentration, 'the headset and app monitors their level of concentration and a`volume bar'of brainwaves is displayed on the screen,
to visually illustrate their level of concentration n
#New breath test may detect pneumonia LONDON: A simple breath test can now detect if a critically ill patient is infected with pneumonia or not.
but actually on your brainwaves. This truly remarkable concept is even more impressive because of Easton young age.
And that is exactly why Anthromod completely relies on 3d printing technology. his reads right about 10 channels of the brain,
and then use the raw actual brainwaves and focus to actually close the hand or open the clamp or hand. aston and his prosthetics.
These brainwave-based prosthetics are also remarkably easy to operate through a wireless headset. good example is had we actually an amputee use the wireless brainwave headset to control a hand,
proliferate and transform into neuron-like cells. hat without any additional growth factors or signaling that people usually have to use to induce differentiation into neuron-like cells,
Shah says. f we could just use a material without needing to incorporate other more expensive or complex agents,
They are also already envisioning sensors, implants and other structures. ells conduct electricity inherently especially neurons.
#MEDPRIN 3d prints world first biological meningioma Redura for use in brain surgery While 3d bioprinting innovations sound lifesaving and revolutionary, most are still years away from impacting ordinary
Called MEDPRIN, they have developed the world first 3d printed biological meningioma called Redura a replica of tissue covering the brain
Usually, when patients undergo brain surgery, doctor first need to cut through a layer of protective tissue between the skull and the brain.
When patching everything up, they'paste'an artificial Meningioma layer on the area in question and sew everything together.
and successfully used in brain surgeries everywhere, they are not biological and have a tendency to disrupt a patient life-as most artificial meningioma layers contain metal parts
They begin by taking meninges tissue out of patients themselves to analyze the fiber structure.
They will subsequently use 3d printing technology to create artificial meninges structures. Upon implantation the brain blood vessels crawl into the structures.
Over a course of up to three months, a completely new Meningioma beings to grow, while the artificial structure naturally degrades.
but that is all that is needed for a protective layer between the skull and the brain.
and sow it together. edura is hydrophobic with a more than 90 contact angle that acts as a watertight barrier for the prevention of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) leakage,
It can of course be viewed at 360°and supports 3d sensors such as Kinect, Leap Motion, the Emotive Brain Sensor and the Occipital Structure 3d scanner.
such as in the nervous system of a zebrafish larva, a preferred model organism for research. Motor neurons in the spinal cord can be seen in the researchers'images;
at the same time, a single neuron with all its extensions is highlighted in another colour. An observation by William Dempsey, post-doc in the group of ETH professor Periklis Pantazis, led to the new application.
He worked with a special class of fluorescent proteins (see box) that change colour when irradiated with laser light of a specific wavelength.
and therefore well suited for microscopy, the ETH researchers used Dendra 2 to colour neurons.
They then focused the combined laser beam's focal point on the cell body of a single neuron in a live, anesthetized zebrafish.
The ability to make individual neurons visible could be of great importance, for example, in the precise mapping of the brain, according to Pantazis.
#Injectable Nanoscale Electronic Scaffolds to Monitor Neural activity It sounds unlikely, until you visit Charles Lieber's lab. A team of international researchers, led by Lieber, the Mark Hyman, Jr.
the scaffolds can be used to monitor neural activity, stimulate tissues and even promote regenerations of neurons.
The study is described in a June 8 paper in Nature Nanotechnology. Contributing to the work were Jia Liu, Tian-Ming Fu
-when cardiac or nerve cells were grown with embedded scaffolds. Researchers were then able to use the devices to record electrical signals generated by the tissues,
and to measure changes in those signals as they administered cardio-or neuro-stimulating drugs."
"But if you want to study the brain or develop the tools to explore the brain-machine interface,
you need to stick something into the body. When releasing the electronics scaffold completely from the fabrication substrate,
'"Though not the first attempts at implanting electronics into the brain-deep brain stimulation has been used to treat a variety of disorders for decades-the nano-fabricated scaffolds operate on a completely different scale."
"Existing techniques are crude relative to the way the brain is wired, "Lieber explained.""Whether it's a silicon probe or flexible polymers...
I call"neuro-philic"-they actually like to interact with neurons..""Despite their enormous potential, the fabrication of the injectable scaffolds is surprisingly easy."
and used to stimulate or record neural activity.""These type of things have never been done before, from both a fundamental neuroscience and medical perspective,
"Lieber said.""It's really exciting-there are a lot of potential applications.""Going forward, Lieber said, researchers hope to better understand how the brain
and other tissues react to the injectable electronics over longer periods. Harvard's Office of Technology Development has filed for a provisional patent on the technology
or even from specific neurons over an extended period of time-this could, I think, make a huge impact on neuroscience."
"Source: http://www. harvard. ed d
#Carbon nanotube-Based Water Desalination and Purification Technology Awarded Patent Mitra's new carbon nanotube immobilized membrane (CNIM) is an energy-efficient device designed to filter higher concentrations of salt than is currently feasible through reverse osmosis, one of the standard
greatly diminishing their ability to deliver blood to the heart muscle and the brain. The condition
sewn into pillows to monitor brain signals or applied to interactive textiles with heating and cooling capabilities. revious technologies have achieved similar functionalities,
#New Tool Generates Images of Brain Inside at Nanoscale Resolution A new imaging tool developed by Boston scientists could do for the brain
In the first demonstration of how the technology works, published July 30 in the journal Cell, the researchers look inside the brain of an adult mouse at a scale previously unachievable, generating images at a nanoscale resolution.
The inventors'long-term goal is to make the resource available to the scientific community in the form of a national brain observatory."
"The researchers have begun the process of mining their imaging data by looking first at an area of the brain that receives sensory information from mouse whiskers,
neuron, glial cell, blood vessel cell, etc..""The complexity of the brain is much more than what we had imagined ever,
"says study first author Narayanan"Bobby"Kasthuri, of the Boston University School of medicine.""We had this clean idea of how there's a really nice order to how neurons connect with each other,
but if you actually look at the material it's not like that. The connections are so messy that it's hard to imagine a plan to it,
"The researchers see great potential in the tool's ability to answer questions about what a neurological disorder actually looks like in the brain,
as well as what makes the human brain different from other animals and different between individuals. Who we become is very much a product of the connections our neurons make in response to various life experiences.
To be able to compare the physical neuron-to-neuron connections in an infant, a mathematical genius,
and someone with schizophrenia would be a leap in our understanding of how our brains shape who we are (or vice versa).
The cost and data storage demands for this type of research are still high, but the researchers expect expenses to drop over time (as has been the case with genome sequencing).
the scientists are now partnering with Argonne National Laboratory with the hopes of creating a national brain laboratory that neuroscientists around the world can access within the next few years."
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