Lifeboat Foundation

A recent study published in Nature Neuroscience has made significant strides in understanding visual masking, a phenomenon that plays a crucial role in how we perceive, or rather “unsee,” things. This study not only illuminates aspects of conscious perception in the brain but also demonstrates that this phenomenon occurs in both humans and mice.

Visual masking occurs when a person does not consciously perceive an image because another image is shown in quick succession. For effective masking, the first image must appear and disappear swiftly, followed by the second image within approximately 50 milliseconds.

Persistent chronic inflammation – also recognized as metaflammation or inflammaging – emerges as a consistent factor in ailing populations, in conditions correlated with age-related deterioration and even in ostensibly robust individuals. This phenomenon has been correlated with the onset of autoimmune disorders such as psoriasis and lupus, as well as chronic diseases including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, among others. Investigations have substantiated that environmental and lifestyle variables such as smoking, a poor diet, physical inactivity and lack of or poor quality sleep can contribute to the perpetuation of chronic underlying inflammation.

Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) is a critical coenzyme; vital for the functionality of all living cells, the preservation of intracellular NAD+ pools plays a crucial role in supporting cellular and metabolic processes. Key among these processes is the production of cellular energy, adenosine triphosphate (ATP), and DNA repair. Research indicates that a decrease in NAD+ levels is linked to compromised inflammatory responses and innate immune dysfunction. This implies that the levels of NAD+ may play a critical role in the operational efficacy of immune cells.

NR is an efficient NAD⁺ precursor; clinically proven to increase NAD⁺ safely and effectively it has become a popular supplement, and there is a growing body of clinical evidence demonstrating the anti-inflammatory effects of NR supplementation (either alone or in combination with other ingredients) for healthy, older adults, or those with inflammation-related disorders [4]. Indeed, NR supplementation has potential for more robust effects among the elderly and diseased populations as they tend to have compromised NAD⁺ and a higher inflammatory status.

A team of scientists in Basel believes this will open up new lines of research.

A basic map of consciousness identifies four major domains of the mind.

Transistor performs energy-efficient associative learning at room temperature.

An artistic interpretation of brain-like computing. Image by Xiaodong Yan/Northwestern University.

This chapter gives an overview of the projects facing a science of consciousness. Such a science must integrate third-person data about behavior and brain processes with first-person data about conscious experience. Empirical projects for integrating these data include those of contrasting conscious and unconscious processes, investigating the contents of consciousness, finding neural correlates of consciousness, and eventually inferring underlying principles connecting consciousness with physical processes. These projects are discussed with reference to current experimental research on consciousness. Some obstacles that a science of consciousness faces are also discussed.

Ontology, the ideas we have about the nature of reality, and epistemology, our concepts about how to gain knowledge about the world, are interdependent. Currently, the dominant ontology in science is a materialist model, and associated with it an empiricist epistemology. Historically speaking, there was a more comprehensive notion at the cradle of modern science in the middle ages. Then “experience” meant both inner, or first person, and outer, or third person, experience. With the historical development, experience has come to mean only sense experience of outer reality. This has become associated with the ontology that matter is the most important substance in the universe, everything else-consciousness, mind, values, etc.,-being derived thereof or reducible to it. This ontology is insufficient to explain the phenomena we are living with-consciousness, as a precondition of this idea, or anomalous cognitions. These have a robust empirical grounding, although we do not understand them sufficiently. The phenomenology, though, demands some sort of non-local model of the world and one in which consciousness is not derivative of, but coprimary with matter. I propose such a complementarist dual aspect model of consciousness and brain, or mind and matter. This then also entails a different epistemology. For if consciousness is coprimary with matter, then we can also use a deeper exploration of consciousness as happens in contemplative practice to reach an understanding of the deep structure of the world, for instance in mathematical or theoretical intuition, and perhaps also in other areas such as in ethics. This would entail a kind of contemplative science that would also complement our current experiential mode that is exclusively directed to the outside aspect of our world. Such an epistemology might help us with various issues, such as good theoretical and other intuitions.

Keywords: complementarity; consciousness; contemplative science; dual aspect model; epistemology; introspection; materialism; ontology.

Copyright © 2020 Walach.

Quanta Magazine’s coverage of biology in 2023, including important research progress into the nature of consciousness, the origins of our microbiomes and the timekeeping mechanisms that govern our lives and development.\
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Read about more breakthroughs from 2023 at Quanta Magazine: https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-bi…\
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00:05 The Investigation of Consciousness\
Our minds are constantly taking in new external information while also creating their own internal imagery and narratives. How do we distinguish reality from fantasy? This year, researchers discovered that the brain has a “reality threshold” against which it constantly evaluates processed signals. \
- Original story with links to research papers can be found here: https://www.quantamagazine.org/is-it–…\
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04:30 Microbiomes Evolve With Us\
This year, scientists provided clear evidence that the organisms in our microbiome —the collection of bacteria and other cells that live in our guts and elsewhere on our body — spread between people, especially those with whom we spend the most time. This raises the intriguing possibility that some illnesses that aren’t usually considered communicable might be.\
– Original story with links to research papers can be found here: https://www.quantamagazine.org/global…\
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08:43 How Life Keeps Time\
The rate at which an embryo develops and the timing of when its tissues mature vary dramatically between species. What controls the ticking of this developmental clock that determines an animal’s final form? This year, a series of careful experiments suggest that mitochondria may very well serve dual roles as both the timekeeper and power source for complex cells.\
- Original story with links to research papers can be found here: https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-m…\
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Quanta Magazine is an editorially independent publication supported by the Simons Foundation: https://www.simonsfoundation.org/

Synchron’s electrodes are delivered via blood vessel.

Until now, only about 50 humans have ever had BCIs implanted in their brains.