Bilingual

Brain's language network is more extensive than previously thought
25 days ago
- MIT researchers discovered 17 new brain regions beyond left hemisphere areas involved in language processing.
- These regions are scattered across cerebellum, hippocampus, and cerebral cortex, making up about 5% of brain volume.
- The study used fMRI data from over 700 people and a language localizer task to identify language-selective areas.
- Some newly identified regions, particularly in the cerebellum, also responded to nonlinguistic cognitive tasks.
- The findings challenge previous assumptions and open new avenues for studying language processing across the brain.
3D Printing a Brain (2021)
25 days ago
- The project involved creating a 3D-printed brain trophy from an MRI scan in 2021.
- The process included converting DICOM to a mesh, cleaning in Blender, printing halves on an SLA printer, casting silicone molds, pouring pewter, and assembling with epoxy.
- A custom base was made using a router and chamfer bits, with a 3D-printed plaque.
- Key learnings included medical file types, new manufacturing techniques, and achieving a polished final result.
Scientists reverse brain aging, with a nasal spray
23 days ago
- A nasal spray therapy using extracellular vesicles (EVs) carrying microRNAs can reverse brain aging by reducing neuroinflammation and restoring memory.
- The therapy, developed by Texas A&M researchers, shows effects within weeks and lasts months, with potential applications for dementia, stroke, and cognitive aging.
- Intranasal delivery allows direct brain treatment without invasive procedures, targeting immune cells to suppress inflammatory pathways and recharge neuronal mitochondria.
- The treatment improved cognitive functions in models, such as object recognition and environmental adaptation, with consistent results across both genders.
- A U.S. patent has been filed, backed by the National Institute on Aging, highlighting a shift towards 'successful brain aging' for healthier, longer lives.
Microgravity as neurocognitive catalyst for altered consciousness experiences
16 days ago
- Earth's gravity acts as a '1G super-prior' in the brain's predictive framework, stabilizing perception and consciousness.
- Microgravity disrupts this super-prior, causing prediction errors, multisensory integration issues, and spatial disorientation.
- Astronauts experience altered self-location, emotional regulation, and perceptual coherence, sometimes leading to transformative states like the Overview Effect.
- Neural changes in spaceflight resemble those induced by psychedelics, involving reduced high-level priors and enhanced global brain integration.
- Spaceflight serves as a non-pharmacological experiment to study consciousness transformation when fundamental constraints are removed.
Indian scientists produce most detailed 3D atlas of the human brainstem
13 days ago
- IIT Madras scientists created Anchor, the world's most detailed 3D cellular atlas of the human brainstem.
- Anchor integrates MRI scans with microscopic images of over 500 tissue sections from fetal to adult brains.
- The atlas identifies more than 200 brain cell clusters and nerve pathways using eight chemical markers.
- It bridges medical imaging and cellular pathology, allowing seamless zoom from whole brain to individual neurons.
- Potential applications include studying disorders like Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, stroke, and aiding neurosurgeries.
- The atlas is freely available online and built affordably from high-resolution microscope images.
- Future plans include imaging over 100 whole human brains to create a reference library for neurological diseases.
Sensing warm and cool: how the body detects temperature changes
10 days ago
- New research challenges the belief that separate nerve cells detect warm and cool temperatures, showing that thermoreceptors can sense both by increasing activity in cool conditions and decreasing in warmth.
- Thermoreceptors are critical for survival, acting as first responders to relay temperature information from the skin to the brain, with potential implications for understanding impairment in aging and diseases like spinal cord injury and diabetes.
- Advanced imaging in mice revealed thermoreceptor responses to everyday non-painful temperatures, which could lead to improved therapies for thermal dysfunction by targeting the correct nerve cells and pathways.
Could a Neuroscientist Understand a Microprocessor?(2017)
11 hours ago
- Neuroscience methods, tested on a known microprocessor, fail to reveal meaningful understanding of its hierarchical information processing.
- Current analytic approaches in neuroscience may not produce insights into neural systems, even with unlimited data.
- Complex artificial systems like microprocessors can serve as validation platforms for time-series and structure discovery methods.
- Standard techniques (tuning curves, connectomics, lesions, Granger causality) show structure but not true functional comprehension.
- The processor's simple components (transistors) produce complex brain-like signals (oscillations, power laws), but these are epiphenomena.
- Existing methods often reveal correlations but lack causal or hierarchical explanations due to limitations in experimental design and theory.

neuroscience

Brain's language network is more extensive than previously thought

3D Printing a Brain (2021)

Scientists reverse brain aging, with a nasal spray

Microgravity as neurocognitive catalyst for altered consciousness experiences

Indian scientists produce most detailed 3D atlas of the human brainstem

Sensing warm and cool: how the body detects temperature changes

Could a Neuroscientist Understand a Microprocessor?(2017)