Elon Muskโs Neuralink, the company that purports to implant computer chips in human brains, just took a critical step toward actually following through.
The brain implant firm is officially hiring a clinical trial director, which means Muskโs futuristic firm is finally ready, at least on its own terms, to give next-gen brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) a try.
Of course, itโs hard to imagine being the one for whom the buck stops should anything go monstrously wrong during trials. But on the other hand, if it works, this could be the beginning of a new age of sense re-immersion for countless victims of neurological disorders, brain damage, paralysis, and more.
Snoring not only can cause a restless night for bedfellows, but it can also disturb the processes that affect brain health. Researchers found that reducing snoring may improve cognitive function in individuals with mild impairment.
Researchers from The University of Texas at Dallas and their colleagues have discovered that breathing rates while sleeping can be used to distinguish cognitively normal people from those who have mild cognitive impairment or Alzheimerโs disease.
The following was written out of a shared belief that there are only two things that can change the world. A big army and a big idea. This is a distillation of our big idea.
Dear Elon Musk.
We are writing out of concern. Concern for ourselves, our patients, and the tens of millions of minds around the world you reach. You see, we have a problem. Patients and physicians in the neuromodulation community consistently misinterpret your public comments. It is very important to us that we do not overinflate expectations or unnecessarily hype these products beyond what is possible.
The sleeping brain is more active if it hears unfamiliar voices rather than familiar ones. The finding suggests that we can process information about our environments even in the depths of sleep.
Manuel Schabus at the University of Salzburg in Austria and his colleagues monitored 17 people, with an average age of 23, in a sleep lab over two nights. Brain activity was monitored using an electroencephalography (EEG) machine.
The idea that our genes are our fateโ is dead. Exciting new discoveries in the field of epigenetics have proven that our lifestyle and environment can turn off and on many of the genes that control our health and wellbeing. Simple things like where we live, what we eat, pollution, stress, and exercise all impact which genes are silenced and expressed throughout our lives.
Research has shown that that the current dramatic rise in obesity, heart disease, diabetes and Alzheimerโs all have epigenetic mechanisms at play. Not only that but many epigenetic changes are actually passed to future generations: your grandmotherโs dietary deficits may have caused your diabetes. Your fatherโs smoking may have turned on your marker for obesity or ADHD. Three generations later the descendants of holocaust survivors are still suffering stress disorders.
The recognition that environment, not genetics, is the primary driver of human health and disease carries with it a strong message of personal empowerment and responsibility. We are no longer powerless in the high stakes game of our own health. We can now play an active role in our genetic destiny.
Decoding Life: The Epigenetics Revolution is a one-hour documentary that uncovers the latest findings in the game-changing field of epigenetics. We meet the worldโs top epigenetic experts, uncover the latest research into how epigenetics can be used to treat some of societyโs most dire health crises such as cancer, heart disease, obesity, and dementia.
Like so much in chronic disease, Alzheimerโs is complicated: โonce you have seen one person with Alzheimerโs, you have seen one person with Alzheimerโs. In other words, Alzheimerโs disease (AD) is a heterogeneous disease which may present and progress differently depending on the person and the factors contributing to the disease pathology. As such, there is no paint-by-numbers approach to targeted treatment. Researchers in the field are thus motivated to figure out a way to categorize AD in order to guide more individualized approaches to patient care and help anticipate disease trajectory.โ
A proposal for 4 subtypes of Alzheimerโs disease.
Cardiff University study is โmajor step forwardโ in hunt for developmental origins of schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders.
Scientists from Cardiff University have discovered new links between the breakdown in brain cell development and the risk of schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders.
Genetic risk factors are known to disrupt brain development in a number of these disorders, but little is known about which aspects of this process are affected.
we individualize our conscious awareness through the filter of our nervous system, our โlocalโ mind, our very inner subjectivity, but consciousness itself, the Self in a greater sense, our โcoreโ self is universal, and knowing it through experience has been called enlightenment, illumination, awakening, or transcendence, through the ages.
Hereโs Consciousness: Evolution of the Mind (2021), Part IV: UNIVERSAL CONSCIOUSNESS >
*Subscribe to our channel to catch premiering further installments of the documentary on YouTube! This film is to be released on YouTube in parts.
All memory storage devices, from your brain to the RAM in your computer, store information by changing their physical qualities. Over 130 years ago, pioneering neuroscientist Santiago Ramรณn y Cajal first suggested that the brain stores information by rearranging the connections, or synapses, between neurons.
Since then, neuroscientists have attempted to understand the physical changes associated with memory formation. But visualizing and mapping synapses is challenging to do. For one, synapses are very small and tightly packed together. Theyโre roughly 10 billion times smaller than the smallest object a standard clinical MRI can visualize. Furthermore, there are approximately 1 billion synapses in the mouse brains researchers often use to study brain function, and theyโre all the same opaque to translucent color as the tissue surrounding them.
