What is the best way to think about human consciousness? This post helps you understand it seeing it as three loops.
Category: neuroscience – Page 107
Summary: Researchers have identified how the brain’s default mode network (DMN) collaborates with other regions to produce creative thought. By using advanced brain imaging techniques, they tracked real-time brain activity during creative tasks.
This study reveals that the DMN initiates creative ideas, which are then evaluated by other brain regions. Understanding this process could lead to interventions that enhance creativity and aid mental health treatments.
How and to what degree we respond emotionally to the real world is handled by a region at the back of the brain called the occipital temporal cortex.
Scientists reveal how brain activity predicts a person’s response — normal or abnormal — to an emotionally charged image
A neuroimaging study of young people who exhibit a persistent pattern of disruptive, aggressive, and antisocial behavior, known as conduct disorder, has revealed extensive changes in brain structure.
NIH-funded study of conduct disorder identifies new brain areas associated with the disorder, offering future directions for research efforts and clinical practice.
Researchers from the University of Queensland have found that high-intensity interval training significantly enhances brain function in older adults, with cognitive improvements lasting up to five years. This study, led by Emeritus Professor Perry Bartlett and Dr. Daniel Blackmore, confirms that such exercise can not only improve but sustain cognition in aging populations, potentially reducing the risks and costs associated with dementia.
Researchers from the University of Queensland have conducted a longitudinal study demonstrating that high-intensity interval exercise can enhance brain function in older adults for up to five years. Led by Emeritus Professor Perry Bartlett and Dr. Daniel Blackmore of UQ’s Queensland Brain Institute, the study involved participants engaging in physical exercise and undergoing brain scans.
They have shown high high-intensity exercise boosts cognition in healthy older adults and the improvement was retained for up to 5 years.
This is a special talk & discussion with Prof Matthew Larkum at Monash University. Members in the Tsuchiya lab discussed with Matthew on Gidon A, Aru J, Larku…
A fast-onset, in vivo CRISPR screening platform that facilitates functional genomics with single-cell resolution in embryonic and adult animal brains as well as in peripheral nervous systems is presented.
I have recently read the report from Sharad Agarwal, and here are my outcomes by adding some examples:
Transhumanism is the concept of transcending humanity’s fundamental limitations through advances in science and technology. This intellectual movement advocates for enhancing human physical, cognitive, and ethical capabilities, foreseeing a future where technological advancements will profoundly modify and improve human biology.
Consider transhumanism to be a kind of upgrade to your smartphone. Transhumanism, like updating our phones with the latest software to improve their capabilities and fix problems, seeks to use technological breakthroughs to increase human capacities. This could include strengthening our physical capacities to make us stronger or more resilient, improving our cognitive capabilities to improve memory or intelligence, or even fine-tuning moral judgments. Transhumanism, like phone upgrades, aspires to maximize efficiency and effectiveness by elevating the human condition beyond its inherent bounds.
Summary: A recent study suggests that consciousness evolved not for individual survival, but for social purposes, helping humans communicate ideas and emotions. Researchers argue that intuition heavily influences our understanding of consciousness, complicating scientific explanations.
The study emphasizes that while subjective awareness lacks causal influence, it remains crucial in social contexts. This perspective challenges traditional views, suggesting that consciousness benefits the species as a whole through social interactions.
Despite great progress, we lack even the beginning of an explanation of how the brain produces our inner world of colors, sounds, smells and tastes. A thought experiment with “pain-pleasure” zombies illustrates that the mystery is deeper than we thought.
By Philip Goff
In the 1990s the Australian philosopher David Chalmers famously framed the challenge of distinguishing between the “easy” problems and the “hard” problem of consciousness. Easy problems focus on explaining behavior, such as the ability to discriminate, categorize and react to surprises. Still incredibly challenging, they’re “easy” in the sense that they fit into standard scientific explanation: we postulate a mechanism to explain how the system—the brain—does what it does.