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Brain Implant Restores Vision to Blind People

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Partial sight has been restored to six blind people via an implant that transmits video images directly to the brain.

Some vision was made possible – with the participants’ eyes bypassed – by a video camera attached to glasses which sent footage to electrodes implanted in the visual cortex of the brain.

University College London lecturer and Optegra Eye Hospital surgeon Alex Shortt said it was a significant development by specialists from Baylor Medical College in Texas and the University of California Los Angeles. . .

The US team behind the study asked participants, each of whom has been completely blind for years, to look at a blacked-out computer screen and identify a white square appearing randomly at different locations on the monitor. . .

Paul Phillip, who has been blind for almost a decade, says that when he wears the glasses to go on his evening walks with his wife, he can tell where the pavement and grass meet. He also can tell where his white sofa is located. (Read more from “Brain Implant Restores Vision to Blind People” HERE)

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New Brain Study Reveals What Really Happens When Temps Rise

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By The Blaze. You’ve probably heard people complain how it seems like people get dumber when the temperatures get hotter. Well, as it turns out, there appears to be some truth in that belief, according to a study published Tuesday on the PLOS Medicine website.

Researchers from Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health found that the human brain functions 13 percent slower when it has to work in extreme heat.

Scientists studied 44 college students over a 12-day period in Boston in July 2016, one of the city’s worst heat waves on record, according to KDKA-TV. . .

Those living in the buildings without air conditioning performed more than 13 percent worse on math and memory tests than their cohorts who lived in air-conditioned dorms. . .

“Most of the research on the health effects of heat has been done in vulnerable populations, such as the elderly, creating the perception that the general population is not at risk from heat waves,” Jose Guillermo Cedeño-Laurent, the study’s lead author said in the release. (Read more from “New Brain Study Reveals What Really Happens When Temps Rise” HERE)

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Study Finds People Become Less Intelligent When It’s Hot Out

By CBS. Researchers at Harvard University have discovered that a person’s brain works 13 percent slower when it has to operate in extreme heat. According to their report in PLOS Medicine, scientists studied 44 college students living in Boston during a 2016 heat wave.

That July heat wave was reportedly one of the hottest in the city’s history. 22 of the students lived in a brick-based buildings with no air-conditioning. The other 22 undergrads were living in air-conditioned dorms during the 12-day experiment.

The team from Harvard’s T.H. Chan school of Public Health found that the students in non-air-conditioned buildings performed over 13 percent worse on both math and memory tests than their air-conditioned classmates. . .

Scientists added that the buildings the students lived in made the effect of heat on their brains even worse. “These buildings have a hard time shedding heat during hotter summer days created by the changing climate, giving rise to indoor heat waves,” study co-author Joseph Allen added. (Read more from “Study Finds People Become Less Intelligent When It’s Hot Out” HERE)

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In an Unexplained Case, Brain Activity Has Been Recorded as Much as 10 Minutes After Death

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Doctors in a Canadian intensive care unit have stumbled on a very strange case – when life support was turned off for four terminal patients, one of them showed persistent brain activity even after they were declared clinically dead.

For more than 10 minutes after doctors confirmed death through a range of observations, including the absence of a pulse and unreactive pupils, the patient appeared to experience the same kind of brain waves (delta wave bursts) we get during deep sleep. And it’s an entirely different phenomenon to the sudden ‘death wave’ that’s been observed in rats following decapitation.

“In one patient, single delta wave bursts persisted following the cessation of both the cardiac rhythm and arterial blood pressure (ABP),” the team from the University of Western Ontario in Canada reports.

They also found that death could be a unique experience for each individual, noting that across the four patients, the frontal electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings of their brain activity displayed few similarities both before and after they were declared dead.

“There was a significant difference in EEG amplitude between the 30-minute period before and the 5-minute period following ABP cessation for the group,” the researchers explain. (Read more from “In an Unexplained Case, Brain Activity Has Been Recorded as Much as 10 Minutes After Death” HERE)

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Scientists Just Discovered Something That Shows the Human Brain Is Even More Amazing Than We Thought

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The human brain has a capacity that is ten times greater than first thought and can retain 4.7 billion books, scientists have discovered.

This is according to US scientists who have measured the storage capacity of synapses – the brain connections that are responsible for storing memories.

They discovered that, on average, one synapse can hold roughly 4.7 bits of information. This means that the human brain has a capacity of one petabyte, or 1,000,000,000,000,000 bytes.

One petabyte is the same as 20 million four-drawer filing cabinets filled with text,13.3 years of HD-TV recordings, 4.7 billion books or 670 million web pages.

However, this is only the total amount of information that the relevant part of the brain could theoretically carry at any one moment. Its actual archive of memories would be a lot smaller. (Read more from “Scientists Just Discovered Something That Shows the Human Brain Is Even More Amazing Than We Thought” HERE)

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Brain Implant That Decodes Intention Will Let Us Probe Free Will

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Imagine a world where you think of something and it happens. For instance, what if the moment you realise you want a cup of tea, the kettle starts boiling?

That reality is on the cards, now that a brain implant has been developed that can decode a person’s intentions. It has already allowed a man paralysed from the neck down to control a robotic arm with unprecedented fluidity.

But the implications go far beyond prosthetics. By placing an implant in the area of the brain responsible for intentions, scientists are investigating whether brain activity can give away future decisions – before a person is even aware of making them. Such a result may even alter our understanding of free will . . .

“These are exciting times,” says Pedro Lopes, who works at the human-computer interaction lab at Hasso Plattner Institute in Potsdam, Germany. “These developments give us a glimpse of an exciting future where devices will understand our intentions as a means of adapting to our plans.”

The implant was designed for Erik Sorto, who was left unable to move his limbs after a spinal cord injury 12 years ago. The idea was to give him the ability to move a stand-alone robotic arm by recording the activity in his posterior parietal cortex – a part of the brain used in planning movements. (Read more from “Brain Implant That Decodes Intention Will Let Us Probe Free Will” HERE)

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First Human Brain-to-Brain Interface (+video)

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Photo Credit: University of Washington

Photo Credit: University of Washington

University of Washington researchers have performed what they believe is the first noninvasive human-to-human brain interface, with one researcher able to send a brain signal via the Internet to control the hand motions of a fellow researcher.

Using electrical brain recordings and a form of magnetic stimulation, Rajesh Rao sent a brain signal to Andrea Stocco on the other side of the UW campus, causing Stocco’s finger to move on a keyboard.

While researchers at Duke University have demonstrated brain-to-brain communication between two rats, and Harvard researchers have demonstrated it between a human and a rat, Rao and Stocco believe this is the first demonstration of human-to-human brain interfacing.

“The Internet was a way to connect computers, and now it can be a way to connect brains,” Stocco said. “We want to take the knowledge of a brain and transmit it directly from brain to brain.”

The researchers captured the full demonstration on video recorded in both labs. The following version has been edited for length. This video and high-resolution photos also are available on the research website.

Read more from this story HERE.

Weird Science: Quadcopter Robot Controlled Using Only Brain Waves (+video)

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Photo Credit: YouTube

Researchers at the University of Minnesota have demonstrated that brain waves can control the movement of a quadcopter, flying the robot up, down, forward, backward and through hoops.

Using only a skull cap with electrodes that picks up on the brain activity – not a fancy or invasive chip implanted in the brain — the researchers hope the idea could someday be used for people who don’t have the ability to speak or control their limbs.

It may even help patients with conditions like stroke or Alzheimer’s disease. We’re now studying some stroke patients to see if it’ll help rewire brain circuits to bypass damaged areas,” Karl LaFleur, first author of the study and senior biomedical engineering student who is going on to medical school, said according to the university.

Read more from this story HERE.

Electrical Brain Boost Can Make You Better at Math

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Photo Credit: ALAMYFor anyone who struggles with dividing the bill at the end of a meal, there is now a way to give your brain a boost.

Scientists have shown they can improve people’s ability to perform mental arithmetic for up to six months by giving them a short course of harmless electrical stimulation on their scalps.

Volunteers who received rapid pulses of electrical current – equivalent to that from an AA battery – for just 20 minutes a day for five days saw their ability to solve calculations improve by 28 per cent.

The enhancement, which made them faster at carrying out sums and other mathematical tasks, lasted for up to six months after receiving the electrical treatment.

The researchers, who are based at the University of Oxford, believe stimulating the brain in this way could be used to help people who struggle with performing mental arithmetic.

Read more from this story HERE.

Newt Gingrich: Obama Deserves Credit

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Photo Credit: Breitbart

By Donovan Slack. Newt Gingrich, the former speaker who famously wanted to create a moon colony, is now backing President Obama’s plan to spend $100 million mapping the human brain.

“President Obama is taking a very important step toward the most dramatic breakthroughs in human health. Brain research is vital for Autism, Alzheimer’s, epilepsy, Parkinson’s, traumatic brain injury, mental health, and a host of other concerns,” Gingrich said in a statement. Read more from this story HERE.

Obama proposes $100M for brain mapping project

By Associated Press. President Barack Obama on Tuesday asked Congress to spend $100 million next year on a new project to map the human brain in hopes of eventually finding cures for disorders like Alzheimer’s, epilepsy and traumatic injuries.

Obama said the so-called BRAIN Initiative could create jobs and eventually lead to answers to ailments including Parkinson’s and autism and help reverse the effect of a stroke. The president told scientists gathered in the White House’s East Room that the research has the potential to improve the lives of billions of people worldwide.

“As humans we can identify galaxies light-years away,” Obama said. “We can study particles smaller than an atom, but we still haven’t unlocked the mystery of the three pounds of matter that sits between our ears.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Medical Examiner Creates Stash of 9,000 Brains – Without Families’ Permission

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It’s the great brain robbery.

The city Medical Examiner’s Office has kept the brains of more than 9,200 deceased New Yorkers — from the elderly to newborns — in the past eight years, records obtained by The Post show.

The stunning revelation comes as three families publicly question whether the city is yanking brains so rookie pathologists can “practice,” for scientists’ experiments, or for no good reason at all.

“Vasean’s organs were removed for ‘testing’ without any investigative or medical necessity,” charges a suit by the family of Vasean Alleyne, an 11-year-old Queens boy killed by a drunken driver. Months after his burial, his mom was shocked to read in the autopsy report that her son’s brain and spinal cord had been taken.

Brooklyn mom Cindy Bradshaw was stunned to learn she had buried her stillborn son, Gianni, without his brain. The ME kept it — though an autopsy found his death was caused by an abnormality in her umbilical cord and placenta.

Read more from this story HERE.