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Category: neuroscience

Science beyond the physical

For centuries, we’ve assumed that science has banished the transcendent and established that reality is entirely physical. But critics argue there are signs that a rigorous materialism might be holding science back. Increasingly, “emergence” is used to account for everything from consciousness to spacetime – a convenient placeholder for what materialist science may be unable to explain. Physicists like Heisenberg and Hawking concluded that science gives us models of reality, rather than final descriptions of its true nature, while there are scientists working in everything from biology to computer science who suggest that dualism is a productive metaphysical framework for their research. Materialism may have enabled science to reach beyond the dogmas of religion, but there are now those who are restlessly probing the limits of materialism itself.

How does imagination really work in the brain? New theory upends what we knew

The other 99% is used on the activity the brain generates on its own: neurons (nerve cells) firing and signalling to each other regardless of whether you’re thinking hard, watching television, dreaming, or simply closing your eyes.

Even in the brain areas dedicated to vision, the visuals coming in through your eyes shape the activity of your neurons less than this internal ongoing action.

In a paper just published in Psychological Review, we argue that our imagination sculpts the images we see in our mind’s eye by carving into this background brain activity. In fact, imagination may have more to do with the brain activity it silences than with the activity it creates.

Brain scans reveal what resilience really looks like

The expected explanation was straightforward: resilient people would respond more strongly to rewards, allowing positive outcomes to outweigh the negatives. But the brain scans told a different story.

In ten prefrontal and parietal regions tied to cognitive control, the resilient group showed stronger increases in activity when negative information appeared.

Their brains were not muting losses. They were engaging more circuitry to handle them.

Dr. Stuart Hameroff: Consciousness is More than Computation!

13 years ago, I walked into Dr. Stuart Hameroff’s operating room with a camera, a microphone, and a single stubborn question:

Is consciousness computation?

Hameroff, an anesthesiologist and professor at the University of Arizona, and co-author with Sir Roger Penrose of the Orch OR theory, said no.

Emphatically. Unfashionably. Against the entire weight of mainstream neuroscience and Silicon Valley orthodoxy.

At the GF2045 conference, where I first met him, Ray Kurzweil went out of his way to declare Orch OR “totally wrong.” Others called it speculative. Untestable. Unscientific.

Today, in the age of large language models, that argument is no longer a niche dispute among philosophers and physicists. It is the decisive question of our century.

Continue reading “Dr. Stuart Hameroff: Consciousness is More than Computation!” | >

Meet The Axolotl — The Salamander That Can Regrow Its Own Brain

But over evolutionary time, mammals have obviously lost the vast majority of this regenerative capacity. Instead, evolution opted for faster wound sealing, stronger immune responses and more stable neural systems in mammals. This is likely because surviving injury would have mattered more than perfectly reconstructing tissue months later.

Salamanders, on the other hand, have retained far more of this ancestral regenerative toolkit. Their ecology may have reinforced this retention, since small amphibians are especially vulnerable to predation and environmental injury. Limbs, tails and nervous tissue can be damaged surprisingly easily in aquatic habitats filled with predators, debris, and competition. For an animal living close to the edge of survival, the ability to recover from catastrophic injury could dramatically improve reproductive success.

The axolotl’s strange life history has most probably also enabled this unique ability. Unlike many amphibians, axolotls remain in a juvenile-like aquatic state throughout adulthood, a phenomenon known as “neoteny.” Intriguingly, juvenile tissues in many vertebrates tend to be more regenerative than adult tissues. Thus, by retaining aspects of its developmental state for life, the axolotl may preserve cellular programs that would otherwise be “switched off” after maturation.

Scientists Build a Living Computing Device Using Real Brain Cells

Princeton researchers have built a 3D device that combines living brain cells with advanced electronics in one system.

The device uses computational methods to recognize electrical patterns and may help researchers study brain function, neurological disease, and low-power computing.

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Scientists restore memory by blocking a single Alzheimer’s protein

Researchers have identified a new potential weapon against Alzheimer’s: blocking a protein called PTP1B. In mice, this approach boosted memory and helped brain immune cells clear harmful plaque buildup. Since PTP1B is also linked to diabetes and obesity—both risk factors for Alzheimer’s—it could offer a broader treatment strategy.

Temporal Variability in the Spiking Activity of Neurons in the External Globus Pallidus in Healthy and Parkinsonian Monkeys

The first report of in vivo extracellular recordings in the external segment of the globus pallidus (GPe) of awake monkeys described that most GPe neurons show high-frequency spiking activity, interspersed with pauses (high-frequency discharge with pauses, HFD-P), while a smaller proportion was said to show low-frequency discharge with bursts (LFD-B; DeLong, 1971). Similar patterns of pallidal discharge have been demonstrated by other authors, both in primates (Katabi et al., 2022) and rodents (Bugaysen et al., 2010; Benhamou et al., 2012).

There is evidence, however, that the HFD-P and LFD-B subtypes of GPe neurons are only the most recognizable extremes of a continuous spectrum of properties of GPe neurons. This view is supported by in vivo and in vitro recordings in rodents which found that the firing properties of the population of GPe neurons distribute along a continuum, with specific cells firing within more limited boundaries of firing rates and patterns (Abdi et al., 2015; Cui et al., 2021). Furthermore, observations in rodents showed that GPe neurons display a wide range of firing rates and patterns (Deister et al., 2013). The firing pattern heterogeneity in in vivo recordings may arise, at least in part, due to shifts in firing behavior of the same neurons, as has been reported in rodent studies (Deister et al., 2013). Such variations in firing patterns may only be detectable when recordings extend over long time periods (Elias et al., 2008).

The loss of nigrostriatal dopamine fibers associated with parkinsonism induces multiple alterations in GPe, where neuronal firing becomes slower, may show more frequent bursts, and becomes more synchronized (Galvan et al., 2015; Courtney et al., 2023). However, the stability of firing patterns of GPe neurons in the parkinsonian state has not yet been investigated.

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