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Tag: brain

  • New Study Focuses on Blood Vessels For Alzheimer’s Treatment

    New Study Focuses on Blood Vessels For Alzheimer’s Treatment

    Researchers this week revealed new research showing that blood vessels in the brain may be associated with Alzheimer’s disease. The new study has shown that specific brain blood vessel cells could prove useful for the diagnoses and/or treatment of the disease.

    The study, published in the journal Nature Communications, looked at the connection between Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia. Where Alzheimer’s is the most common cause of dementia in humans, vascular dementia is the second leading cause of the condition. Alzheimer’s is characterized by a build-up of beta-amyloid plaques but many Alzheimer’s patients also exhibit signs of vascular disease, suggesting that Alzheimer’s may be connected somehow to blood vessel degeneration.

    By studying the brain blood vessels of mice, researchers have come closer to understanding how blood vessel health could contribute to Alzheimer’s disease. The study’s authors cross-bred mice to show that blood vessel cells called pericytes could play a major role in the development of Alzheimer’s. Pericytes act as gatekeepers to the blood-brain barrier and the new research suggests that lower levels of pericytes could bean beta-amyloid plaques are cleared from the brain at a slower rate.

    “Our results suggest that damage to the vascular system may be a critical step in the development of full-blown Alzheimer’s disease pathology,” said Dr. Berislav Zlokovic, a co-author of the study and director of the Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute at the University of Southern California.

    The study’s authors believe their results show how decreased levels of pericytes caused by blood vessel damage could be instrumental in Alzheimer’s disease. As plaques form in the brain they could further harm blood vessels, causing pericytes to further decrease and hastening along progression of Alzheimer’s. Zlokovic and his colleagues believe this means the blood-brain barrier should be considered as a target for Alzheimer’s treatment.

  • Epilepsy-Treating Brain Implant Approved by FDA

    The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today approved a brain implant designed to treat epilepsy. The implant is now approved for use in the U.S. to help reduce the frequency of epilepsy-related seizures for patients who haven’t responded to seizure medications.

    The implant is called the RNS System and is manufactured by a company called Neuropace. I consists of a neurostimulator that is implanted within a patient’s skull, then connected to two electrodes that are placed on or inside a patient’s brain in areas where doctors believe epilepsy seizures occur. The neurostimulator then provides a normalizing burst of electrical stimulation when it detects electrical activity consistent with an oncoming seizure.

    “The neurostimulator detects abnormal electrical activity in the brain and responds by delivering electrical stimulation intended to normalize brain activity before the patient experiences seizure symptoms,” said Christy Foreman, director of the Office of Device Evaluation at the FDA.

    Approval for the device was based on a three month clinical trial in which 191 epilepsy patients who had not responded to seizure medications were implanted with the device. Patients participating in the trial were shown to have n average of around 38% fewer seizures each month.

    Abnormal electrical signals in the brain are known to cause epilepsy. People with the disorder often suffer from odd physical behaviors or seizures. According to the FDA around 3 million people in the U.S. suffer from epilepsy, and almost 200,000 Americans will be diagnosed each year.

  • New Study: Our Brains Need Sleep To Clean Themselves

    NPR reports that a new study from University of Rochester researchers may explain not only why we so desperately need sleep, but also the role sleep plays in preventing Alzheimer’s disease.

    A study of mouse brains that were asleep showed that cerebrospinal fluid flows to the brain quite rapidly while mammals are asleep, and the team speculated that the fluid is cleaning out the brain much like washing dirt off a plate. “It’s like a dishwasher,” said Dr. Maiken Nedergaard, one of the study’s authors and a neurosurgery professor at the University of Rochester.

    If the fluid performs the same function in humans that it appears to serve in mice, then human brain cells shrink when we go to sleep, making the fluid easier to circulate. When the mouse woke up, the brain cells enlarged and the fluid’s flow slowed to a crawl. “It’s almost like opening and closing a faucet. It’s that dramatic,” Dr. Nedergaard added.

    The research team had previously discovered the cerebrospinal fluid was carrying away waste that gets built up in the cracks between brain cells. Those waste products are toxic to our brains, and if one fails to get a good night’s sleep, leftover “brain gunk” might explain the morning sluggishness. The researchers also believe the finding explains how lack of sleep can be lethal.

    This “brain cleaning process” doesn’t happen all the time because, like a dishwasher, it probably requires a lot of energy. “It’s probably not possible for the brain to both clean itself and at the same time [be] aware of the surroundings and talk and move and so on,” Dr. Nedergaard said about how the process worked.

    It should be noted that the process has not yet been directly observed in humans; even still, Nedergaard thinks that the buildup of plaque in our brains being cleaned by our spine is far from coincidence. “Isn’t it interesting that Alzheimer’s and all other diseases associated with dementia, they are linked to sleep disorders?” she mused.

    The BBC noted several experts’ comments on the study. Dr. Neil Stanley, an independent sleep expert, said of the study’s implications that “There is good data on memory and learning, the psychological reason for sleep. But this is the actual physical and chemical reason for sleep, something is happening which is important.”

    If you want to check out a YouTube explanation of the findings directly from the study’s authors, this particular video should be interesting:

    [Image via this History Channel documentary about the brain on YouTube]

  • 4,000 Year Old Preserved Human Brain Found in Turkey

    Archaeologists in western Turkey have uncovered a 4,000-year-old human brain, preserved inside its skull. The brain, one of the oldest ever found, was dug up in Seyitömer Höyük, a Bronze Age settlement 25 kilometers northwest of Kutahya, as the crow flies.

    The brain was unearthed in 2010, amidst an ancient burial ground which appears to have been burned. Charred skeletons and wooden objects were also found. Meriç Altinoz of Haliç University in Istanbul, along with his colleagues, believe that an earthquake destroyed the settlement, burying everyone and everything, soon before a fire began to spread. The fire consumed a lot of the oxygen, and likewise boiled all of the moisture off of the brain, thus preventing normal tissue decay.

    The result is what appears to be a sponge-like block of petrified brain-wood. Another factor which aided in the preservation of the brain lied in the makeup of the soil at the site. It was full of magnesium, potassium and aluminum. These components, combined with fatty acids found in human tissue, make up a substance scientifically known as adipocere. Adipocere is known as “corpse wax” on the streets.

    University of Zurich researcher Frank Rühli states that “the level of preservation in combination with the age is remarkable.” Rühli goes on to point out that these old brains can be studied for ailments like tumors, hemorrhages and degenerative diseases like Parkinson’s, adding that “if we want to learn more about the history of neurological disorders, we need to have tissue like this.”

    Researchers have also recently deduced that three 500-year-old preserved Inca children were drugged before being sacrificed. Though ancient preserved tissue finds are rare, they might be more common than one might think – Rühli says that most archaeologists don’t bother looking for the remains of brain tissue because they assume it is seldom preserved, adding ,”If you publish cases like this, people will be more and more aware that they could find original brain tissue too.”

    Image via Haliç Üniversitesi, Istabul.

  • Brain Hacking Gets the AsapSCIENCE Treatment

    Make someone happy with the push of a button? Make someone do a silly dance by delivering an electrical signal? Sign me up, brain hacking sounds awesome.

    AsapSCIENCE, as always, takes a complicated topic and condenses it into a delightful 3-minute animation. It may not clear everything up, but it sure makes you think. Makes you think. It made you think. Brain hacking, yo.

    Image via Thinkstock

  • Chronic Pain, Is It All In The Brain?

    Chronic Pain, Is It All In The Brain?

    “Mind over matter” is advice that seems to come up again and again these days. Can this advice be helpful even with something as brutally overwhelming as chronic pain? Well, according to new research much of the pain is wired in the brain. A recent study conducted by Ali R. Mansour and A. Vania Apkarian from Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine shows that chronic pain may be linked to the white matter in the brain even before an actual injury has occurred.

    The study was based around 46 individuals who were studied over the course of a 12 month period. Information about this new study was released earlier this week in the journal, Pain, where claims suggest that differences in brain structures lead certain people to predispositions for chronic pain. These predispositions can be observed through the neural passageways even before a person has experienced chronic pain. The link between the evolution of short-term pain and the manifestation of chronic pain is not determinable from the study. However, with continued research such questions may someday be answered.

    Previous research has shown that chronic pain sufferers have less gray matter in their brains when compared with individuals who have not suffered from chronic pain. The gray matter relates to how the brain controls movement and retains memories as well as to enabling reasoning capabilities. Another noted distinction to the wiring of chronic pain sufferers is that the connection between physical pain and the visceral, emotional component is more closely woven into the brain structure for these chronic pain sufferers than those not afflicted. As a result of this study, it was observed that of the 46 subjects whose pain escalated to the chronic level they had white matter in their brains that “exhibits 30 to 50 years of additional aging.”

    Emotional support for present suffers may prove to be more medicinal than prescriptions as the following tweets show.

    [Image Via Wikimedia Commons And Courtesy Of Borsook D, Moulton EA, Schmidt KF, Becerra LR. Through Neuroimaging revolutionizes therapeutic approaches to chronic pain]

  • Human Brain-to-Brain Interface Demonstrated [VIDEO]

    Last month, researchers at Harvard University revealed that they have developed a brain-to-brain interface that can allow humans to control the movements of rats. Now, researchers at the University of Washington are claiming to have gone a step further, creating a brain-to-brain interface to send signals between two humans.

    The researchers believe they have created the first noninvasive human brain-to-brain interface. Their technique involves recording electrical signals from one brain and using them to magnetically stimulate another. As a demonstration, they used their setup to send a signal from one brain to another across the UW campus.

    Rajesh Rao, a computer science professor at WU played the role of sender, wearing a cap hooked up to an electroencephalography machine. He watched a simple video depicting a pirate ship that could fire its cannons at a target. When he decided to fire, he was instructed to imagine moving his right hand.

    That signal was sent across campus to Andrea Stocco, a UW professor of psychology who wore a swim cap. The cap was hooked up for transcranial magnetic stimulation of Stocco’s left motor cortex, which is associated with hand movement. His hand was placed over the “fire” button on a keyboard, which he hit as he received Rao’s signal. A video of the experiment can be seen below.

    “It was both exciting and eerie to watch an imagined action from my brain get translated into actual action by another brain,” said Rao. “This was basically a one-way flow of information from my brain to his. The next step is having a more equitable two-way conversation directly between the two brains.”

    Rao and his colleagues hope the technology can be adapted for the disabled or for emergency situations, such as a passenger being instructed on landing a plane. The researchers also stressed that there is no way their technology could be used for mind control.

    “I think some people will be unnerved by this because they will overestimate the technology,” said Chantel Prat a UW psychology professor who helped conduct the experiment. “There’s no possible way the technology that we have could be used on a person unknowingly or without their willing participation.”

    (Image courtesy the University of Washington)

  • Vitamin B: Alzheimer’s Might Have Met Its Match

    A new study published this week shows that vitamin B may be just the thing scientists have been looking for when it comes to Alzheimer’s patients.

    “Our work shows that a key part of the disease process that leads to Alzheimer’s disease, the atrophy of specific brain regions, might be modified by a safe and simple intervention,” said Dr. David Smith, who led the study.

    The study–which was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences–found that people who took part in a trial had 90% less brain shrinkage when given a dose of vitamin B on a regular basis than those who took a placebo. The areas of the brain that are affected by the disease were protected by the vitamin, including the parts that determine how we learn and how we remember and organize our thoughts.

    “I’ve never seen results from brain scans showing this level of protection,” said Paul Thompson, professor of neurology and head of the Imaging Genetics Center at UCLA School of Medicine, California.

    The study was conducted previously with only 50% less brain shrinkage determined in the participants. This new trial marks the beginning of a new path for scientists, who have hit blockage after blockage while trying to find a cure–preventative or otherwise–for the disease. Those in charge of the study say that a combination of B-6, B-12, and folic acid was exactly what they were looking for. Because vitamin B keeps amino acids in check–particularly homocysteine, which becomes a brain chemical that controls memory–a healthy dose of it later in life could prevent brain shrinkage.

    “The study needs to be repeated because there’s a lot to learn about why homocysteine is damaging and whether lowering it can stop people with memory problems progressing to Alzheimer’s,’ says Professor Thompson. ‘But if the results survive retesting, homocysteine level could be a useful biomarker for Alzheimer’s risk.”

  • Google Talk Deals With Building The Virtual Brain

    Google Tech Talks always cover come interesting topics. This time, it’s the Virtual Brain – a project that involves the construction of a simulation of the human brain.

  • White House Officially Announces New Brain-Mapping Project

    As expected, President Obama has officially announced a bold new brain-mapping project that will attempt to do for the human brain what the Human Genome Project did for human genetics.

    The Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) project “promises to accelerate the invention of new technologies that will help researchers produce real-time pictures of complex neural circuits and visualize the rapid-fire interactions of cells that occur at the speed of thought.”

    In a post on the White House blog, Director of the National Institutes of Health Dr. Francis Collins and Director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Dr. Arati Prabhakar say the project will help scientists better understand the human mind and that could lead to breakthroughs in the prevention and treatment of many brain disorders like Alzheimer’s, schizophrenia, autism, and epilepsy.

    The President calls the project ambitious, but achievable.

    BRAIN will be supported by $100 million in governmental funding (per Obama’s 2014 Fiscal Year budget) – coming from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and the National Science Foundation (NSF). It’s also getting a good chunk of private funding, from sources like the Allen Institute for Brain Science, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the Kavli Foundation, who have pledged an annual spend of $60 million, $30 million, and $4 million, respectively.

    “Like sequencing the human genome, President Obama’s BRAIN Initiative provides an opportunity to rally innovative capacities in every corner of the Nation and leverage the diverse skills, tools, and resources from a variety of sectors to have a lasting positive impact on lives, the economy, and our national security,” says the White House.

  • Will Google Offer A ‘Brain Interface’ Within The Next Ten Years?

    Google put out a new Webmaster Help video today, though this one doesn’t really do much to help webmasters. It’s simply Matt Cutt responding to the question: Where do you see Google search 10 years down the road?

    An interesting topic, for sure.

    As Cutts notes, that’s a long time. In Internet years that’s a really, really long time. I can’t imagine how even Cutts could possibly know what Google will be like that far into the future. It sounds, however, like a lot of current Google projects like Google Glass and Google Now are involved.

    One interesting (if not scary) concept Cutts mentions is a brain interface.

    “In theory there could be a brain interface so you could be having a dialogue where some of it is audible and some of it is not,” he contemplates.

    I think that hovers somewhere around that “creepy line” that Microsoft likes to keep talking about (and even illustrating). Former Google CEO (and current Executive Chairman) Eric Schmidt said a few years ago that brain implants would cross the creepy line. The part about the creepy line was used as a sound byte in Microsoft’s “Scroogled” campaign about Gmail, even though Schmidt was talking about brain implants.

    I smell a Scroogled resurrection.

  • The Obama Administration Has an Awesome New Brain-Mapping Project in the Pipeline

    In the same way that the Human Genome Project has helped improve our understanding of human genetics, the White House is hoping that a new project could help us unlock the mysteries of the human brain.

    According to a report from the New York Times, the Obama administration is set to unveil a major scientific project inside next month’s budget proposal. Called the Brain Activity Map project, the proposed venture would seek to build a vast and comprehensive map of the human brain, to better understand its processess.

    Apparently, the project would fall under the guidance of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and could cost billions. Of course, there are no details yet about how the financing would be distributed.

    The plans, which may be announced in March, involve multiple federal agencies, private companies, and a host of neuroscientists.

    The project could kick off with the help of some high-profile tech companies. The NYT includes this little tidbit in the report:

    A meeting held on Jan. 17 at the California Institute of Technology was attended by the three government agencies, as well as neuroscientists, nanoscientists and representatives from Google, Microsoft and Qualcomm. According to a summary of the meeting, it was held to determine whether computing facilities existed to capture and analyze the vast amounts of data that would come from the project. The scientists and technologists concluded that they did.

    Of course, a project like this has implications for any number of fields including artificial intelligence, medicine (brain diseases), and more. It also has the ability to spur job growth in the scientific sector.

    Remember this part of President Obama’s State of the Union speech?

    “Every dollar we invested to map the human genome returned $140 to our economy…every dollar. Today our scientists are mapping the human brain to unlock the answers to Alzheimer’s. They’re developing drugs to regenerate damaged organs, devising new materials to make batteries 10 times more powerful. Now is not the time to gut these job-creating investments in science and innovation.”

    Maybe an early tip to the upcoming Brain Activity Map? Projects like this can take a while to get going after they’re announced and worked into the budget. Plus, it’s being referred to as a “decade-long” project. So let’s get on with it. Yeah, Science.

  • Scientists Capture The Birth Of A Thought On Video

    Have you ever thought to yourself, “I wonder what my thoughts look like?” It’s the kind of meta-question that you normally would never ponder, but some scientists have captured the birth of a thought on video for the first time.

    The Epoch Times reports that researchers at Japan’s National Institute of Genetics recently captured video of a thought as it emerged in the brain of a zebrafish. The thought in question? Food. Check out the video below, which captures thought activity thanks to a sensitive fluorescent probe inserted into the fish’s genes via its genes.

    As you can see, thoughts in the form of neurons start firing everywhere as soon as food crosses the path of the zebrafish. Being able to trace the path of these neurons will help researchers “interpret an animal’s behavior, including learning, memory, fear, joy, or anger, based on the activity of particular combinations of neurons.”

    The research isn’t just being used to study animal behavior, however, as it can also be used to understand how psychiatric drugs affect the brain. A human’s brain functions in much the same way as a fish’s so researchers will be able to test out new drugs on fish and directly observe any abnormal effects new drugs have on the brain.

    As an added bonus, here’s a video from the outside that shows the thought of food moving through the brain in real time:

    If you want to ready the study in full, it’s been published in Current Biology.

    For more fun with brains, check out today’s AsapScience video that explains why your brain works the way it does.

  • Let’s Learn Some Stuff About Our Brains, Shall We? [VIDEO]

    Today, our favorite YouTube science illustrators want to teach you about fast thinking and slow thinking with some cool brain tricks. I can see no reason why we shouldn’t oblige them.

    Long story short, your fast thinking mechanisms in your brain are always trying to parse out information as quickly as possible. This is fairly useful in day-to-day life. But sometimes, our fast thinking betrays us in its desire for speed. Slow thinking is what we need to use to solve certain problems.

    But then again, slow thinking engagement can make you blind to a bunch of other stimuli out there in the world.

    Basically, your brain is awesome and terrible. Have fun.

    [AsapSCIENCE]

  • Smoking Rots Brain, Shows Aging Study

    A new study shows that smoking, high blood pressure, and other cardiovascular risk factors are associated with accelerated declines in memory, learning, attention, and reasoning. Smoking was linked most clearly with low cognitive performance in older people.

    The study, published today in the journal Age and Ageing, looked at adults over the age of 50 who were part of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) Those who smoked, had high blood pressure, or were at risk of suffering a stroke performed worse than other adults on cognitive tasks designed to measure things such as memory recall, verbal fluency, and attention.

    Smoking was the factor most consistently linked to overall lower cognitive performance. Adults with a high body mass index (BMI), blood pressure, and stroke risk performed more poorly on cognitive tests, but performances varied across the tests. High BMI was associated with lower scores on the memory test, high blood pressure with lower scores on memory and overall cognitive performance, and high stroke risk with lower scores on all cognitive assessments.

    “Cognitive decline becomes more common with aging and for an increasing number of people interferes with daily functioning and wellbeing,” said Dr. Alex Dregan, lead author of the study and lecturer in translational epidemiology and public health at King’s College London. “Some older people can become forgetful, have trouble remembering common words or have problems organizing daily tasks more than others.

    “We have identified a number of risk factors which could be associated with accelerated cognitive decline, all of which could be modifiable. This offers valuable knowledge for future prevention and treatment interventions.”

    The study’s authors claim that the study is one of only a few longitudinal studies to research the combined effect of multiple risk factors on cognitive decline in older people and one of the few studies to study cognitive decline in older people over a long period of time. Dregan stated that the study could form the basis of future clinical trials that seek to identify interventions for the U.K.’s aging population.

  • How the Brain Ages and How to Stop It [Infographic]

    The most important thing to take from this infographic is that there are ways that you can maintain a healthy brain. The ways to do this are pretty simple and self-explanitory: Eat right, exercise (your mind and your body), get plenty of rest, and find ways to release stress.

    Some interesting factoids you may not have known: The brain produces twice the amount of neurons it needs during childhood. By age 6, grey matter is almost fully developed.

    Feeling like you can’t remember anything as you get older? There is scientific backing for that. Your brain may begin to degenerate as early as puberty. It peaks at around age 22 and only lasts to about 27. It’s all downhill from there.

    By the time your are 65, you will have lost about 10% of your brain cells, but hopefully you won’t care by then.

  • Internet Addiction Infographic Raises Awareness

    One study titled “Microstructure Abnormalities in Adolescents with Internet Addiction Disorder” from PLoS One concluded that adolescents with Internet Addiction Disorder:

    Had multiple structural changes in the brain. The gray matter atrophy and white matter FA changes of some brain regions were significantly correlated with the duration of internet addiction. These results may be interpreted, at least partially, as the functional impairment of cognitive control in IAD. The prefrontal cortex abnormalities were consistent with previous substance abuse studies, hence we suggested that there may exist partially overlapping mechanisms in IAD and substance use. We hoped that our results will enhance our understanding of IAD and aid in improving the diagnosis and prevention of IAD.

    The following infographic also reports that individuals with IAD can experience 10% to 20% surface area brain shrinkage similar to damage found in cocaine and alcohol addicts.

    According to this source there are five warning signs that indicate that someone might be afflicted by IAD. They include the deterioration of social, work and home life, feelings of anger, restlessness or depression when not online and an increase in happiness while interfacing, and lying about the amount of time that you spend on the internet.

    Coupons.org put out the following infographic:

    (image)

    Source: Coupons.org

    Has the internet become a drug?

    Apparently it is so powerful that a sizable proportion of those surveyed said they were willing to give up vices like alcohol, coffee, and chocolate before they gave up the internet. But people still continue to eat junk food while surfing the net.

    The fact remains that playing on the internet is a sedentary activity and does not lead to a healthy balanced lifestyle if carried out in excess.

    A study titled “Associations of Leisure-Time Internet and Computer Use With Overweight and Obesity, Physical Activity and Sedentary Behaviors: Cross-Sectional Study” from the Journal of Medical Internet Research found that: “Adults with high leisure-time Internet and computer use were more likely to be overweight or obese even if they were highly active in their leisure time as compared to participants who did not use the Internet or computer.”

    Greek Sage and philosopher, Epictetus, says it best, “If one oversteps the bounds of moderation, the greatest pleasures cease to please.”

    If you or someone you know is suffering from IAD you can find help here.

  • Device That Reads Minds May Become a Reality

    Have you ever wondered what or if a coma patient was thinking? Have you ever wanted to read someone’s mind or have your own mind read? Well, it seems your curiosity could be answered. A device that measures brain waves of brain damaged patients in hospitals could be adapted to be used as a mind reading device.

    In the video, a key word is spoken to each patient, using the scanner, the device measures brain activity and “guesses” what the patient’s brain waves relay into “words”. Essentially the device reads brain signals and then echoes the information back at the moment of the audio stimulation.

    The brain breaks down words into complex electrical patterns that can be decoded and translated back using the machine. The device analyzes the the activity upon reception of the audio information, it can then report back an approximation of the original sound. It’s believed that the brain processes thought much in the same way it processes sound; scientists believe this breakthrough may, in the future, lead to and implant that can interpret, essentially, the brain waves in those patients unable to speak, translating that data into audible speech.

    Seeing as the device is based mainly on sound reaction interpretation, the device is said to be a long way off due to the fact that scientists would have to develop it in such a way that can analyze thoughts of patients, rather than reacting to sound.

    According to a source, the device would require electrodes implanted into the physical brain of a subject because there are no sensors in existence that could detect the finite electrical signals of the brain from a non-invasive stand point. A researcher from the University of California at Berkley commented saying:

    “This is huge for patients who have damage to their speech mechanisms because of a stroke or Lou Gehrig’s disease and can’t speak. If you could eventually reconstruct imagined conversations from brain activity, thousands of people could benefit.”

    A study was done, analyzing patients suffering from epilepsy, who were to undergo surgery to point out the cause of their seizures. The process entailed having small electrodes placed on the brain through a hole in the skull. Now, while the electrodes were attached, the team mediated activity in the temporal lobe of the brain; the area which precesses speech. In that time, the patients listened to recordings of clear, concise speech and conversation.

    The conversation was broken down into its baser sounds and with this, the team was able to build 2 computer models that matched signals in the brains of the individuals to actual sounds. After that, they tested the two models by playing a single word recording to the patients, which then gave them the ability to guess, from the brain activity, what the word they heard was.

    The more concise of the two models was able to make an extreme approximation of the given word from the team. Researchers say the technology could be adapted to become more accurate by studying the brain waves of patients during longer conversations or by studying other parts of the brain that involve speech.

    Some critics say, though, that this “mind-reading device” could be used to spy on people’s private thoughts, but Professor Brian Pasley dismissed it saying:

    “This is just to understand how the brain converts sound into meaning, and that is a very complicated process. The clinical application would be down the road if we could find out more about those imaginary processes. This research is based on sounds a person actually hears, but to use this for a prosthetic device these principles would have to apply to someone who is imagining speech.”

    One professor, Jan Schnupp said that this research is “remarkable”. He went on to say:

    “Neuroscientists have long believed that the brain essentially works by translating aspects of the external world, such as spoken words, into patterns of electrical activity, but proving that this is true by showing that it is possible to translate these activity patterns back into the original sound -or at least a fair approximation of it- is nevertheless a great step forward, and it paves the way to rapid progress toward biomedical applications.”

  • Want To Watch Your Dreams on YouTube? Scientists Take The First Step

    Well this just might be the coolest thing you’ll see all month.

    UC Berkeley scientists have found a way to use brain activity to recreate moving images, i.e. movies. Basically, they were able to record signals in people’s brains, and then they used that data to reconstruct visual images.

    The researchers used functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging to see how the subject’s brains processed visual stimuli, and applied that knowledge to the recreation of images using existing YouTube clips.

    Here’s how they did it:

    [The subjects] watched two separate sets of Hollywood movie trailers, while fMRI was used to measure blood flow through the visual cortex, the part of the brain that processes visual information. On the computer, the brain was divided into small, three-dimensional cubes known as volumetric pixels, or “voxels.”

    “We built a model for each voxel that describes how shape and motion information in the movie is mapped into brain activity,” lead author of the study Shinji Nishimoto said.

    The brain activity recorded while subjects viewed the first set of clips was fed into a computer program that learned, second by second, to associate visual patterns in the movie with the corresponding brain activity.

    Brain activity evoked by the second set of clips was used to test the movie reconstruction algorithm. This was done by feeding 18 million seconds of random YouTube videos into the computer program so that it could predict the brain activity that each film clip would most likely evoke in each subject.

    Finally, the 100 clips that the computer program decided were most similar to the clip that the subject had probably seen were merged to produce a blurry yet continuous reconstruction of the original movie.

    Here’s the amazing video showing what those recreations looked like as compared with the original film clip –

    As of now, the science can only reconstruct images from movie clips that people have already viewed. It can’t simply pull images right out of the brain and create a video of what someone is thinking.

    But imagine the possibilities – dream mapping, reconstructing memories, and helping people with neurodegenerative diseases or people in a coma who can’t communicate verbally. The prospect of being able to record and then see a visual manifestation of your mind’s eye is terrifyingly awesome.

    The researchers say that they are decades for the scientific breakthroughs to do this, however. It will be quite awhile before you’ll be able to read someone’s thoughts by monitoring their visual cortex.

    But damn, isn’t this fascinating?