Lifeboat Foundation

Discussion panel with:
- Swati Chavda, a science fiction writer and former brain surgeon.
- Ron S. Friedman, a science fiction writer and an Information Technologies Specialist.

August 13th 2022, When Words Collide festival.

Continue reading “Brain — Computer Interface. How this new technology will change the word” »

Neuralink, a company co-founded by Elon Musk, has been working on an implantable brain-machine interface since 2016. While it previously demonstrated its progress by showing a Macaque monkey controlling the cursor.

It’s unclear what kind of deal Musk has offered — whether it’s a collaboration or a financial investment —since none of the players responded or confirmed the report with the news organization.

Elon Musk’s last update on Neuralink — his company that is working on technology that will connect the human brain directly to a computer — featured a pig with one of its chips implanted in its brain. Now Neuralink is demonstrating its progress by showing a Macaque with one of the Link chips playing Pong. At first using “Pager” is shown using a joystick, and then eventually, according to the narration, using only its mind via the wireless connection.

Continue reading “Neuralink’s brain-computer interface demo shows a monkey playing Pong” »

Hui Li, PhD, a Department of Pathology researcher, along with his team discovered that a gene responsible for the deadliest type of brain tumor is also found to be responsible for two forms of childhood cancer. The new discovery may open the door to the first targeted treatments for two types of rhabdomyosarcoma, a cancer of the soft tissue that primarily strikes young children. Research also suggests the gene may play an important role in other cancers that form in muscle, fat, nerves and other connective tissues in both children and adults. Hui Li, PhD, and team published their findings in the scientific journal PNAS.

Summary: Increasing neurogenesis by deleting the Bax gene in mouse models of Alzheimer’s improved the animals’ performance in tests measuring spatial recognition and contextual memory.

Source: Rockefeller University.

Researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago have discovered that increasing the production of new neurons in mice with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) rescues the animals’ memory defects.

Summary: Researchers have developed a new sensor that allows scientists to image the brain without missing signals for an extended period of time and deeper in the brain than current technology allows.

Source: Baylor College of Medicine.

As you are reading these words, certain regions of your brain are displaying a flurry of millisecond-fast electrical activity. Visualizing and measuring this electrical activity is crucial to understand how the brain enables us to see, move, behave or read these words.

The Brain Chemical Involved in Consciousness

So how do we help these people? The brain is more than just a congregation of different areas. Brain cells also rely on a number of chemicals to communicate with other cells, enabling a number of brain functions. Before our study, there was already some evidence that dopamine, well known for its role in reward, also plays a role in disorders of consciousness.

For example, one study showed that dopamine release in the brain is impaired in minimally conscious patients. Moreover, a number of small-scale studies have shown that patients’ consciousness can improve by giving them drugs that act through dopamine.

Cells use selective autophagy or self-degradation of undesired proteins to maintain cellular homeostasis (i.e., a state of balance). This process is controlled by autophagy receptors, which mediate the selection of a target protein that is subsequently “cleared.”

Tau proteins, which play a crucial role in the internal architecture of neurons in the brain, abnormally accumulate within neurons in disorders such as dementia and Alzheimer’s.

Alzheimer’s disease is a disease that attacks the brain, causing a decline in mental ability that worsens over time. It is the most common form of dementia and accounts for 60 to 80 percent of dementia cases. There is no current cure for Alzheimer’s disease, but there are medications that can help ease the symptoms.

Yet, in the newly-created fields of quantum physics and cognitive science, difficult and troubling mysteries still linger, and occasionally entwine. Why do quantum states suddenly resolve when they’re measured, making it at least superficially appear that observation by a conscious mind has the capacity to change the physical world? What does that tell us about consciousness?

“Brain computer interfaces” — devices that allow you to operate a computer with your mind — are already in human trials. And they’re about to be a really big business.