Lifeboat Foundation

The regions and lobes of the brain are identified along with some of the nerves and vessels. The basic functions of the cortex of each lobe are introduced along with principal sulci and gyri. The importance of the left hemisphere for language and the temporal lobe in memory are mentioned along with the concept of cortical localisation. A classical frontal section is used to demonstrate grey and white matter along with the primary internal structures. The brain is one of the largest and most complex organs in the human body. It is made up of more than 100 billion nerves that communicate in trillions of connections called synapses. The brain is made up of many specialised areas that work together: The cortex is the outermost layer of brain cells. the human brain is explained in this video. Full documentary of the human brain.

Analysis: humans make about 35,000 decisions every day so is it possible for AI to deal with a similar volume of high decision uncertainty?

Artificial intelligence (AI) that can think for itself may still seem like something from a science-fiction film. In the recent TV series Westworld, Robert Ford, played by Anthony Hopkins, gave a thought-provoking speech: “we can’t define consciousness because consciousness does not exist. Humans fancy that there’s something special about the way we perceive the world and yet, we live in loops as tight and as closed as the [robots] do, seldom questioning our choices – content, for the most part, to be told what to do next.”

Mimicking realistic human-like cognition in AI has recently become more plausible. This is especially the case in Computational Neuroscience, a rapidly expanding research area that involves the computational modelling of the brain to provide quantitative, computational theories.

Sleep is essential to all animals with a nervous system. Nevertheless, the core cellular function of sleep is unknown, and there is no conserved molecular marker to define sleep across phylogeny. Time-lapse imaging of chromosomal markers in single cells of live zebrafish revealed that sleep increases chromosome dynamics in individual neurons but not in two other cell types. Manipulation of sleep, chromosome dynamics, neuronal activity, and DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) showed that chromosome dynamics are low and the number of DSBs accumulates during wakefulness. In turn, sleep increases chromosome dynamics, which are necessary to reduce the amount of DSBs. These results establish chromosome dynamics as a potential marker to define single sleeping cells, and propose that the restorative function of sleep is nuclear maintenance.

It sounds like science fiction: a device that can reconnect a paralyzed person’s brain to his or her body. But that’s exactly what the experimental NeuroLife system does. Developed by Battelle and Ohio State University, NeuroLife uses a brain implant, an algorithm and an electrode sleeve to give paralysis patients back control of their limbs. For Ian Burkhart, NeuroLife’s first test subject, the implications could be life-changing.

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Continue reading “This Brain Implant Could Change Lives” »

In a way, the connectome is also a foundation for understanding far more complex nervous systems like our own.

“If a worm can do so much with so few neurons, and we have orders of magnitude more neurons,” Paul Sternberg, a biology professor at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, told Scientific American, “then we’re amazing.”

Continue reading “Scientists succeed in mapping every neuron in a worm, a breakthrough in neuroscience” »

Instead of trying to fix stroke-damaged nerve cells, Stanford scientists took aim at a set of first-responder immune cells that live outside the brain but rush to the site of a stroke. It worked.

Music has proven time and again to be an important component of human culture. From its ceremonial origin to modern medical usage for personal motivation, concentration, and shifting mood, music is a powerful balm for the human soul. Though traditional “music therapy” encompasses a specific set of practices, the broader use of music as a therapeutic tool can be seen nowadays as doctors are found recommending music for a wide variety of conditions.

Thomas Durcan’s lab is growing 3D mini-brains in the search for a cure for Parkinson’s disease. Over the next year he is giving all his lab’s protocols, methods and results away.

A new method enables researchers to test algorithms for spotting genes that contribute to a complex trait or condition, such as autism.

Researchers often study the genetics of complex traits using genome-wide association studies (GWAS). In these studies, scientists compare the genomes of people who have a condition with those of people without the condition, looking for genetic variants likely to contribute to the condition. These studies often require tens of thousands of people to yield statistically significant results.

GWAS have identified more than 100 genomic regions associated with schizophrenia, for example, and 12 linked to autism. Results are often difficult to interpret, however. Causal variants for a condition may be inherited with nearby sections of DNA that do not play a role.