Lifeboat Foundation

A substantial proportion of people with a traumatic brain injury who had their life support withdrawn may have survived and at least partially recovered, a study suggests.

Traumatic brain injuries can occur due to a forceful blow, a jolt to the head or an object entering the brain, such as a bullet…

After comparing people with brain injuries whose life support was continued with those who had it turned off, scientists calculated that around 40 per cent in the latter group may have made some recovery.

Continue reading “Some brain injury patients would recover if life support weren’t ended” »

*BREAKTHROUGH!!*

Scientists may one day be able to freeze brains and bring them back to life following a major breakthrough in cryogenics.

Researchers in China have successfully frozen and thawed human brain tissue, after which it regained normal function.

Continue reading “Frozen brain tissue brought back to life in major breakthrough” »

Fruit fly study reveals brain-cell circuitry that could underlie how creatures large and small see wavelengths of light as information-rich hues.

Perceiving something – anything – in your environment means becoming aware of what your senses are detecting. Today, for the first time, Columbia University neuroscientists identify brain-cell circuitry in fruit flies that converts raw sensory signals into color perceptions that can guide behavior.

Their findings are published today (May 16) in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

UCLA Health researchers have identified a process that memories while reducing metabolic costs, even during sleep. This efficient memory is found in a brain region essential for learning and memory, which is also where Alzheimer’s disease originates.

The discovery is published in the journal Nature Communications.

Does this sound familiar: You go to the kitchen to fetch something, but when you get there, you forget what you wanted. This is your working memory failing. Working memory is defined as remembering some information for a short period while you go about doing other things. We use working memory virtually all the time. Alzheimer’s and dementia patients have working memory deficits and it also shows up in mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Hence, considerable effort has been devoted to understanding the mechanisms by which the vast networks of neurons in the brain create working memory.

Perceiving something—anything—in your surroundings is to become aware of what your senses are detecting. Now, Columbia University neuroscientists have identified, for the first time, brain-cell circuitry in fruit flies that converts raw sensory signals into color perceptions that can guide behavior.

Since taste receptor cells (TRCs) undergo rapid turnover, maintaining neurosensory integrity (i.e., sweet taste receptors signaling to “sweet” neurons) is essential (Fig. 2, shown here). The labeled-line model of taste transmission connects taste reception and signal integration in the brain.

“It is nonsensical to say that an LLM has feelings,” Hagendorff says. “It is nonsensical to say that it is self-aware or that it has intentions. But I don’t think it is nonsensical to say that these machines are able to learn or to deceive.”

Brain scans

Other researchers are taking tips from neuroscience to explore the inner workings of LLMs. To examine how chatbots deceive, Andy Zou, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and his collaborators interrogated LLMs and looked at the activation of their ‘neurons’. “What we do here is similar to performing a neuroimaging scan for humans,” Zou says. It’s also a bit like designing a lie detector.

Currently, treatments are largely limited to symptomatic relief rather than addressing the underlying disease progression. Given this gap in treatment options, there is a significant need for new therapies that can protect brain cells and potentially reverse damage.

Cannabinol (CBN), a compound derived from the cannabis plant, has emerged as a candidate for such treatments due to its neuroprotective properties, which are evident without the psychoactive effects associated with other cannabinoids like THC.

Previous studies indicated that CBN could help preserve mitochondrial function in brain cells, an essential factor for cell survival and energy production. Mitochondrial dysfunction is a common feature in several neurodegenerative diseases, often leading to cell death. By focusing on CBN and its derivatives, researchers aimed to develop new pharmacological strategies to prevent or mitigate the cellular mechanisms that lead to neurodegeneration.

Using an innovative new method, a University of Saskatchewan (USask) researcher is building tiny pseudo-organs from stem cells to help diagnose and treat Alzheimer’s.