Lifeboat Foundation

A classic thought experiment in the philosophy of mind is reduplication, in which a person (or her mind) is duplicated such that two or more descendant people of shared mental ancestry now exist where previously there was one. The philosophical quandary is to resolve what happened to the original person’s identity. Did she survive and if so, in which of the resulting people’s minds? Which of the two resulting people is the original and which is a mere copy of denigrated identity status? Alternatively, is there something fundamentally wrong with the wording of such questions, such that we should we adopt a different perspective on the nature of personal identity that offers alternative solutions to the reduplication quandary? Reduplication further arises not only in abstract philosophical musings, but also in the futuristic and variously conceivable (depending on the reader’s tastes), technology of mind uploading, in which a person’s physical brain is emulated via the technology of whole brain emulation. While mind uploading might produce a single result, such as if the original brain is destroyed by the uploading process and only one upload is created, we can also conceive of either nondestructive scenarios (in which the original brain is not destroyed) or scenarios that produce multiple uploads. Either case results in multiple descendant minds, each operating in distinct physical systems (brains or cloned brains, or computers of some sort). The philosophy of personal identity has produced several possible stances on the nature of personal identity. The most popular are body identity and psychological identity, with other options including closest continuer identity, space-time worm identity and branching identity. However, there is always room for new theories to enter the discussion. The way in which blockchains work, and Bitcoin’s mining process and protocol for handling orphaned blocks, suggests a new theory of identity along with a new solution to the reduplication problem. The proposed blockchain solution to personal identity has applications to the handling of the reduplication problem as it may arise during a futuristic mind uploading procedure.

A blockchain holds a hashed transaction ledger, essentially the history of all transactions encoded to prevent any subsequent alteration of the history. In this way, all transactions back to the beginning of the ledger’s history can be confirmed by any interested party. Deceit, fraud, and other attempts to undermine the history simply don’t work, and consequently blockchains enable a variety of interactions with the currently most popular being digital currency. In addition to more conventional applications, blockchains could also be used to assign identity status (original or copy) to the descendent minds of a mind uploading procedure. Each descendant could then venture out into the world confident that their identity status will be honored by all third parties thereafter. Let us call this the blockchain theory of personal identity.

Summary: Study reveals a hidden order in seemingly random connections between neurons.

Source: University Hospital Bonn.

In the brain, our perception arises from a complex interplay of neurons that are connected via synapses. But the number and strength of connections between certain types of neurons can vary.

Alector, a clinical-stage biotechnology company pioneering immuno-neurology and innate immuno-oncology, has announced the initiation of the first-in-human Phase 1 trial of AL044. The study is investigating the safety profile, pharmacokinetics (PK), pharmacodynamics (PD) and target engagement of AL044 in healthy adults.

Longevity. Technology: Headquartered in South San Francisco, California, Alector is aiming to develop an unmatched pipeline of novel potential medicines based on insights into immunology, neurology and human genetics. The company’s therapeutic candidates are intended to harness the body’s innate power to heal itself, and Alector is pioneering immuno-neurology, a novel therapeutic approach for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, and innate immuno-oncology.

Immuno-neurology targets immune dysfunction as a root cause of multiple pathologies that are drivers of degenerative brain disorders. Alector has discovered, and is developing, a broad portfolio of innate immune system programs, designed to functionally repair genetic mutations that cause dysfunction of the brain’s immune system and enable rejuvenated immune cells to counteract emerging brain pathologies. Alector’s immuno-neurology product candidates are supported by biomarkers and target genetically defined patient populations in frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.

Real-world data (and real-world evidence) can also play roles outside of public health emergencies like Covid and monkeypox. They can help determine the long-term effectiveness of many treatments, especially those subject to the expedited approval process, such as those used for rare diseases, and can help determine the value of drugs in general. In many cases, clinical trials are not enough to understand how well drugs really work. Janet Woodcock, the director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, has said that the clinical trial system is “broken” and that more use of real-world evidence could be an effective addition to the approval process.

The FDA has been taking steps toward using more real-world data outside of public health emergencies like Covid and monkeypox. In 2018, the agency issued guidance for use of such evidence in approving drugs. By 2021, when the FDA issued enhanced guidance on the topic, real-world evidence had been used in approving 90 medical devices and the new use of a drug, Prograf. But this is not happening enough in practice.

Failing to use real-world data means missing out not just on better understanding of the effectiveness of individual drugs but also on a chance to improve the entire pharmaceutical sector, including addressing issues like rising costs. The availability of more data on real-world outcomes from using drugs, especially gene therapies and other innovative and often very expensive treatments, would pave the way for pricing to take patient outcomes into account through approaches like value-based contracting, when health insurers base drug prices on how well drugs work in the people who take them, rather than just in premarket clinical trials.

Summary: Pain-sensing neurons in the put secrete substance P, a molecule that protects against gut inflammation and tissue damage by boosting specific microbes in the gut. In people with inflammatory bowel disease, the pain-sensing neurons are diminished and there are significant disruptions in pain-signaling genes.

Source: Weill Cornell University.

Neurons that sense pain protect the gut from inflammation and associated tissue damage by regulating the microbial community living in the intestines, according to a study from researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine.

Inspired by the way termites build their nests, scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) developed a framework to design new materials that mimic the fundamental rules hidden in nature’s growth patterns. The researchers demonstrated that by using these rules, it is possible to create materials designed with specific programmable properties.

The research was published in the journal Science on August 26. It was led by Chiara Daraio, G. Bradford Jones Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Physics and Heritage Medical Research Institute Investigator.

“Termites are only a few millimeters in length, but their nests can stand as high as 4 meters—the equivalent of a human constructing a house the height of California’s Mount Whitney,” says Daraio. If you peer inside a termite nest you will see a network of asymmetrical, interconnected structures, similar to the interior of a sponge or a loaf of bread. Made of sand grains, dirt, dust, saliva, and dung, this disordered, irregular structure appears arbitrary. However, a termite nest is specifically optimized for stability and ventilation.

Given the complexity of the human body, it’s no surprise that we’re still making new discoveries about the different parts we’re made up of – and scientists have just made a new discovery about the cerebellum at the back of the brain.

Already known as being important for properly controlling our movements, it now appears that this brain region also has a key role to play when it comes to remembering positive and negative emotional experiences.

These types of emotional experiences are particularly well remembered by the brain, not least because it helps the survival of our species to be able to remember times when we were in danger and times when we prospered.

Human brain tissue has been successfully transplanted into the brains of rats using a cutting-edge experimental procedure, say researchers. They envision the achievement as a promising new frontier in medical research.

Groups of living human nerve cells have become integrated into the brains of laboratory rats, creating hybrid brain circuits that can be activated through input from the rats’ senses, the scientists reported Wednesday.

Further, experiments have shown that the human tissue forms a two-way connection within the rat brain, also sending out signals that can potentially alter the rat’s behavior, the researchers said.

Last year, the pharmaceutical company Biogen released a drug called Aduhelm. It was the first new Alzheimer’s drug approved by the FDA in almost 20 years, but its rollout was mired in controversy — vast swaths of experts decried its approval, claiming there simply wasn’t enough evidence to support its efficacy, while the Journal of American Medicine (JAMA) rejected Biogen’s key Aduhelm paper. Shortly thereafter, Medicare chose to limit coverage of the drug.

All that is to say that given last year’s Aduhelm spectacle, you’d be forgiven for doubting what appears to be a promising development in Biogen’s continued Alzheimer’s drug development. And that’s just what it announced with a collaborator, fellow pharmaceutical maker Eisai, on Tuesday. But that being said, initial data suggests that the new drug is actually proving quite successful in late-stage clinical trials — enough so that Biogen might have a redemption arc, after all.

That new drug, lecanemab, is an anti-amyloid medication. An amyloid is a type of protein, and a normal one for brains to produce. An overabundance of amyloids, however, is believed to be caused by a disruption in a healthy brain’s built-in protein disposal system, resulting in a plaque; although our understanding is still fuzzy, brains with Alzheimer’s are shown to have abnormal plaque levels, so the idea is that anti-amyloid lecenameb, administered intravenously, could scrub that plaque away.