Lifeboat Foundation

Numenta’s “The Thousand Brains Theory of Intelligence”.

It may soon be possible to diagnose Alzheimer’s in a matter of seconds using a noninvasive eye scanner that simply examines a person’s retina.

A study found that cognitive decline decreased by half in adults who wore hearing aids or had cataract surgery.

Imagine a digital avatar of ourselves living on after we die. They could help comfort our loved ones, and they could also preserve expertise and experience. There’s some benefits, but it’s still questionable if this is comforting, or just creepy.

A digital afterlife may soon be within reach, but it might not be for your benefit.

The reams of data we’re creating could soon make it possible to create digital avatars that live on after we die, aimed at comforting our loved ones or sharing our experience with future generations.

Continue reading “The How, Why, and Whether of Custom Digital Avatars That Live on After We Die” »

Using computational models of individual brains could shed light on how brain stucture affects how we perform language-related tasks.

Protein RbAp48 works with osteocalcin to preserve memory in old age.

In a recent open-access study, scientists at Columbia University have demonstrated that a protein known as RbAp48 crucially interacts with osteocalcin to help preserve memory. The protein, which is present in mice as well as people, declines with age, contributing to age-related memory loss [1].

Abstract

Continue reading “RbAp48 And Osteocalcin Play A Crucial Role In Age-related Memory Loss” »

Neuroscientists know a lot about how our brains learn new things, but not much about how they choose what to focus on while they learn. Now, researchers have traced that ability to an unexpected place in the brain.

In order to learn about the world, an animal needs to do more than just pay attention to its surroundings. It also needs to learn which sights, sounds, and sensations in its environment are the most important and monitor how the importance of those details change over time. Yet how humans and other animals track those details has remained a mystery.

Scientists think they’ve figured out how animals sort through the details. A part of the brain called the paraventricular thalamus, or PVT, serves as a kind of gatekeeper, making sure that the brain identifies and tracks the most salient details of a situation. The findings appear in the journal Science.

Continue reading “Brain’s ‘gatekeeper’ decides which details need attention” »

Researchers plan to use the device to develop a ‘gut on a chip’ and attach it to a ‘brain on a chip.’

For a remarkably social species, we’re not particularly effective communicators.

Finding the right words to clearly, efficient transmit our thoughts to another consciousness—even something as simple as driving directions—can be a challenge, especially in-the-moment and under pressure.

What if we could do away with words altogether? What if, rather than relying on an intermediary, we could directly transmit our thoughts through a digital, internet-like space into another mind?

Continue reading “How BrainNet Enabled 3 People to Directly Transmit Thoughts” »