Miscellaneous

How two unlikely microbes (that don't even have brains) led to the development of one of today's most promising brain research techniques--which is being used to study many diseases including schizophrenia and Parkinson's.

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With optogenetics, the ability to restore and enhance brain function is becoming a reality. In this World Economic Forum discussion, Nature magazine neuroscience editor I-han Chou explains how the radical method works and the ethical issues it could cause.

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Is it possible for us to significantly boost our intelligence within a lifetime? Studies show that changes in our lifestyle like exercise and nutrition can help increase brain power - but these improvements are modest at best. Perhaps the future of intelligence will come in the form of a brain implant? We’ve already seen some amazing research to get computers and brains to communicate more easily - and the future implications are limitless!

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Neural implants are already common in medicine. But can they be used to make physical changes to the brain itself?

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Carol Dweck researches “growth mindset” — the idea that we can grow our brain's capacity to learn and to solve problems. In this talk, she describes two ways to think about a problem that’s slightly too hard for you to solve. Are you not smart enough to solve it … or have you just not solved it yet? A great introduction to this influential field.

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Faculty and researchers are using big data to answer society’s most challenging questions, and doing it with the help of FAS Research Computing (FASRC). Founded in 2007, FASRC had one goal: to provide Harvard faculty, students, and staff with leading-edge computational resources.

By building a centralized, high-performance computing environment called Odyssey, FASRC gave researchers the keys to unlock the information inside big data. Users have access to more than 60,000 CPUs and 15 petabytes of storage. At peak usage during a day, Odyssey churns through data so fast that it would take a traditional desktop more than 140 years to process the same information.
For more information, visit
"Harvard’s Odyssey unlocks big data"
Faculty, researchers find high-performance computer system fuels our understanding of the brain

January 26, 2015

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Steven Kotler explains the neurochemical changes during flow states that strengthen motivation, creativity and learning. "The brain produces a giant cascade of neurochemistry. You get norepinephrine, dopamine, anandamide, serotonin and endorphins. All five of these are performance enhancing neurochemicals." Kotler discusses how each amplifies intellectual and cognitive performance.

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Scientists have come up with a way to make whole brains transparent, so they can be labelled with molecular markers and imaged using a light microscope. The technique, called CLARITY, enabled its creators to produce the detailed 3D visualisations you see in this video. It works in mouse brains and human brains; here the team use it to look into the brain of a 7-year-old boy who had autism.

Original research paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature12107
Nature News story:
"See-through brains clarify connections"
Technique to make tissue transparent offers three-dimensional view of neural networks.

by Helen Shen
April 10, 2013

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It sounds like science fiction – a machine that can search your memories? But using real-time brain scans and machine learning algorithms, it’s possible for a computer to look for the presence of memories about specific subjects. In case you’re worried about your memories’ privacy, there’s some good news – our brains can fool the machines. With a little practice and concentration, it’s possible to hide our memories or even construct false ones.

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Trailblazers in neuroscience Dr. Christof Koch and Dr. John Donoghue reveal mind-blowing insights on how the brain turns thought into voluntary behaviors and how that knowledge is empowering victims of neurological trauma with regained physical abilities.

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Whole Brain Emulation & Computational Neuroscience Synopsis Within a few decades, I believe it will be possible to construct working simulations of an entire human brain. In this talk I will explain why I believe this, with reference to recent work in Computational Neuroscience, extrapolations of Moore's Law, and other such matters. I will also address some common criticisms leveled against whole brain emulation, and briefly discuss some of the many ways I believe this technology will drastically change the face of society in the near future.

I'll basically be presenting selected material from this publication, with some updates and additions of my own.
"Whole Brain Emulation A Roadmap"

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As an expert on cutting-edge digital displays, Mary Lou Jepsen studies how to show our most creative ideas on screens. And as a brain surgery patient herself, she is driven to know more about the neural activity that underlies invention, creativity, thought. She meshes these two passions in a rather mind-blowing talk on two cutting-edge brain studies that might point to a new frontier in understanding how (and what) we think.

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Public lecture by Professor Vincent Walsh as part of the Manchester Science Festival. Walsh explains some of these methods used to stimulate the brain and their potential.

Filmed 7:00 pm -- 8:00 pm on Sunday 03 November 2013 at Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI).

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Using magnetoencephalography (MEG), scientists are starting to decode brain waves and decipher human thoughts.

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The human brain is puzzling -- it is curiously large given the size of our bodies, uses a tremendous amount of energy for its weight and has a bizarrely dense cerebral cortex. But: why? Neuroscientist Suzana Herculano-Houzel puts on her detective's cap and leads us through this mystery. By making "brain soup," she arrives at a startling conclusion.

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"Life comes at us very quickly, and what we need to do is take that amorphous flow of experience and somehow extract meaning from it." In this funny, enlightening talk, educational psychologist Peter Doolittle details the importance -- and limitations -- of your "working memory," that part of the brain that allows us to make sense of what's happening right now.

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Treo creator Jeff Hawkins urges us to take a new look at the brain -- to see it not as a fast processor, but as a memory system that stores and plays back experiences to help us predict, intelligently, what will happen next.

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