Lifeboat Foundation

In a good or a bad mood, focused or distracted, our internal states directly influence our perceptions and decision-making. While the role of motivation on the performance of behavioral tasks has been known for more than a century—thanks to the work of psychologists Robert Yerkes and John Dilligham Dodson—its precise effect on the brain remains unclear.

A team from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), in collaboration with the EPFL, has revealed how motivation alters the neural circuits responsible for sensory perception preceding decision-making in mice. This study reveals why a level of motivation that is too high or too low can affect our perception and therefore our choices. These results, featured in the journal Neuron, open up new perspectives in learning methods.

Going to work early in the morning, choosing a restaurant at lunchtime: many of our decisions are motivated by needs such as earning a living or satisfying our hunger. However, decision-making is a complex process, which can also be influenced by external factors, such as the environment or other individuals, and by our internal states, such as our mood, our level of attention or our degree of motivation.

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.

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.

With a fresh comment, Elon Musk, the brains behind Tesla and SpaceX, has ignited Twitter once again. “Please purchase my perfume, so I can buy Twitter,” reads his most recent tweet. For those who are unaware, Elon Musk agreed to buy the social networking site Twitter in April 2022.

Twitter said in October 2022 that it had spoken with Elon Musk and that he had verified his willingness to pay the $44 billion sum in question. Musk now plans to make some money by offering perfume for sale online.

In the beginning, Musk bought a 9.2 percent share on Twitter. Musk, however, made the decision to fully acquire Twitter owing to several differences and a desire to promote “Free Speech” on the social networking platform. In April 2022, a settlement was reached between the two sides, and $54.20 per share in cash was agreed upon.

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.