Lifeboat Foundation

Initial evidence is found that the brain has a ‘tuning knob’ that is actually influencing behavior. Brain circuits can tune into the frequency of other brain parts relevant at the time. The scientific magazine Neuron is publishing the results of researchers at Radboud University the Netherlands on January 22.

Animals (and humans alike) have a metal map of the surrounding environment, consisting of place cells. These cells correspond with places in the physical space and fire when the animal reaches the place or remembers it. The mental map is fed by two sorts of information: with memories from earlier experiences, and with sensory information. But how does the mental map upload this information?

Direct measurements in the brain of mice, looking for their way in a maze, show that memory information is sent with another frequency to the mental map than sensory information is. The brain area representing the mental map synchronizes with these frequencies like a radio receiver: it is only tuning into the information that is important at a given time, an international team of researchers led by Francesco Battaglia from the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour at Radboud University Nijmegen show. This research sheds light on the intriguing question how brain parts choose relevant information from the constant scattering of neurons going on in the brain.

Presumably, this also will make further research on patients in this state harder, since they are potentially savable and can be harmed by some interventions.

Whose brain is it anyway?

The tougher, ethical question is whether this actually would help the deceased person, or (assuming it works) even bring about a new person.

Continue reading “Does a brain-dead person that has been resurrected have their old character?” »

Hmmm.

LIFE after death has been “confirmed” by scientists who have discovered consciousness continues even once a person has died.

Math isn’t everyone’s strong suit, especially those who haven’t stretched that part of their brain since college. Thanks to the wonders of image recognition technology, we now have Mathpix, an iOS app that lets you point your phone camera at a problem and calculates solutions in seconds.

The interface looks like any standard camera app: simply drag the on-screen reticle over the equation and the app solves it and provides graph answers where appropriate. More useful is a step-by-step guide offering multiple methods to reach a solution, making this a bona fide educational tool. It uses image recognition to process problems and pings its servers to do the mathematical heavy lifting, so it likely requires an internet connection to work.

Mathpix was envisioned by Stanford PhD student Nico Jimenez, who was advised by Stanford grad Paul Ferrell. The app’s other developers are high schoolers Michael Lee and August Trollback, which is impressive for an app that claims to be the first to visually recognize and solve handwritten math problems.

Continue reading “Point your phone at an equation and Mathpix will solve it” »

New spin on all things that are Singular. Hmmm — so if Singularity becomes a religion; is Ray Kurzweil its God?

A colleague forwarded John Horgan’s recent Scientific American article, “The Singularity and the Neural Code.” Horgan argues that the intelligence augmentation and mind uploading that would lead to a technological singularity depend upon cracking the neural code. The problem is that we don’t understand our neural code, the software or algorithms that transform neurophysiology into the stuff of minds like perceptions, memories, and meanings. In other words, we know very little about how brains make minds.

Another exampme of how precision works.

While pregnant with her first child, Rhea Birusingh started experiencing blurry vision that her OB-GYN dismissed as an expected pregnancy-related change, but three months later, she went to her ophthalmologist, who discovered an inoperable 2-centimeter benign brain tumor behind her right eye. Now, nearly four months later, Birusingh’s son is healthy and her vision is normal, thanks to a powerful, precise radiation treatment.

“When you’re a pathologist and your eyes are a money maker, you start to get a little bit worried,” Birusingh, 37, of Howey-in-the-Hills, Florida, told FoxNews.com.

Continue reading “Precision radiation helps ward off first-time mom’s brain tumor” »

Researchers have created a beautiful visualization the electrical activity in the human brain with the Unity3D game development engine. It’s gorgeous eye candy but it’s also amazing when you find out what it is you’re looking at.

Very promising. Wonder how effective it is with Prescription Med. Addictions.

A type of brain cell known as microglia plays a key role in reducing the effects of cocaine in the brain, according to a major study by a team from the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC) in Montreal.

The discovery, published in the journal Neuron, establishes for the first time that microglia can diminish the adverse changes to neural circuitry brought on by the chronic use of cocaine and has significant implications for developing an effective treatment for addiction.

Continue reading “Mechanism that reduces effect of cocaine on brain discovered” »

A specific type of immune cell, called microglia (green) can help contain amyloid plaques (magenta), the key hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease, thus limiting their damage to surrounding brain cells.

But, Dr Jaime Grutzendler, associate professor of neurology and neuroscience at Yale, said that is no longer thought to be the case, and should signal a new.

He said: ‘It suggests we should be enhancing the function of these immune cells, not trying to suppress it.’

Continue reading “Immune cells thought to trigger dementia actually PROTECT against it” »