Artificial brains are far in the future, but computer chips that work like brains could keep computers advancing when today’s silicon transistor chips reach their limit.
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Lou Gehrig’s disease, is a crippling, progressive neurodegenerative disease for which there is no cure. Now it seems that a diabetes drug may help some cases.
A bioengineer explains how a clearer picture of brain structure and function may fine-tune the ways brain surgery attempts to correct structure and medication tries to correct function.
Air traffic controllers have to process and manage large amounts of information to get airplanes to their destinations. The brain manages the incessant traffic of neurons in a similar fashion.
Brains recognize a smell based on which cells fire, in what order – the same way you recognize a song based on its pattern of notes. How much can you change the ‘tune’ and still know the smell?
The internet is awash with videos that claim to use ‘binaural beats’ to improve your focus or relieve stress. But while they can influence your brain, the touted mood-enhancing effects may not be.
We have more neurons in our cortices than any other species, courtesy of an early technology – and along with them came our long, slow lives, with plenty of chances to gather around the dinner table.
Philip Mosley, QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute
About one in six people who take the most common medication for Parkinson’s disease will develop addictive behaviours. We found whether this happens depends on a person’s unique brain structure.
Like a cocktail partygoer able to focus on one discussion in a noisy room, brains are able to make reliable connections against a busy neural background. Here are two phenomena that help it happen.
BMIs like the ones Neuralink is working on are already used in laboratories around the world as assistive technologies. But melding your mind with an AI is probably not happening anytime soon.
A new technology has enabled neuroscientists to examine the chemistry of individual brain cells. The finding reveal how genes are regulated differently in brain cells of people with autism compared to neurotypical people.
David Farmer, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
An adult brain weighs about 1.5kg. It’s mostly water with some fat, protein, sugar and a dash of salt. Sounds like pancakes, I know, but I once tried chicken brains and, well, pancakes are tastier.