Lifeboat Foundation

A combination of nanomaterials that can mimic nerve impulses (“spikes”) in the brain have been discovered by researchers at Kyushu Institute of Technology and Osaka University in Japan.

Current “neuromorphic” (brain-like) chips (such as IBM’s neurosynaptic TrueNorth) and circuits (such as those based on the NVIDIA GPGPU, or general purpose graphical processing unit) are devices based on complex circuits that emulate only one part of the brain’s mechanisms: the learning ability of synapses (which connect neurons together).

Continue reading “Nanomaterials that mimic nerve impulses (spikes) discovered” »

Scientists at the California Institute of Technology can now assess a person’s intelligence in moments with nothing more than a brain scan and an AI algorithm, university officials announced this summer.

Caltech researchers led by Ralph Adolphs, PhD, a professor of psychology, neuroscience and biology and chair of the Caltech Brain Imaging Center, said in a recent study that they, alongside colleagues at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and the University of Salerno, were successfully able to predict IQ in hundreds of patients from fMRI scans of resting-state brain activity. The work is pending publication in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.

Adolphs and his team collected data from nearly 900 men and women for their research, all of whom were part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH)-driven Human Connectome Project. The researchers trained their machine learning algorithm on the complexities of the human brain by feeding the brain scans and intelligence scores of these hundreds of patients into the algorithm—something that took very little effort on the patients’ end.

Continue reading “Caltech’s new machine learning algorithm predicts IQ from fMRI” »

A disclaimer on the new article that I wrote: while I do think the Beta-amyloid plaque plays a key role in the development of Alzheimer’s disease I do not think it’s the only thing. I’ll be writing more on Alzheimer’s disease as I study more.

The abnormal accumulation β-amyloid peptide is the leading candidate for the cause of Alzheimer’s disease is currently ranked the 6 th leading cause of death in the United States while some statistics claim it may rank as high as the third leading cause of death.

What is Alzheimer’s disease?

Continue reading “Deletion of BACE 1 Enzyme Reverses The Symptoms of Alzheimer’s” »

The abnormal accumulation β-amyloid peptide is the leading candidate for the cause of Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s disease is currently ranked the 6th leading cause of death in the United States while some statistics claim it may rank as high as the third leading cause of death.

What is Alzheimer’s disease?

Alzheimer’s is a slowly progressive disease that causes the loss of memories and cognitive function. It is the most common form of dementia and accounts for 60 to 80% of cases.

Continue reading “Deletion of BACE 1 Enzyme Reverses The Symptoms of Alzheimer's” »

An unusual transplant may revive tissues thought to be hopelessly damaged, including the heart and brain.

Cerebral small vessel disease (SVD) is one of the most commonly associated causes of age-related dementia and stroke. New research, led by the University of Edinburgh, may have finally uncovered the mechanism by which SVD causes brain cell damage, as well as a potential treatment to prevent the damage, and possibly even reverse it.

SVD is thought to be responsible for up to 45 percent of dementia cases, and the vast majority of senior citizens are suspected of displaying some sign of the condition. One study strikingly found up to 95 percent of subjects between the ages of 60 and 90 displayed some sign of SVD when examined through MRI scans.

The new research set out to examine early pathological features of SVD and found that dysfunction in endothelial cells are some of the first signs of the disease’s degenerative progression. These are cells that line small blood vessels in the brain and, in early stages of SVD, they secrete a protein that impairs production of myelin, a compound essential for the protection of brain cells.

Continue reading “New drug shows promise for preventing and even reversing damage from age-related dementia and stroke” »

European nations see biggest increases in use of stimulants such as Ritalin by people seeking brain-boosting effects.

• By Arran Frood, Nature magazine on July 6, 2018

Marvin Minsky was one of the founding fathers of artificial intelligence and co-founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s AI laboratory.

Abstract for scientists

Continue reading “Official Neurocluster Brain Model site” »

The workings of memory and learning have yet to be clarified, especially at the neural circuitry level. But researchers at Uppsala University have now, jointly with Brazilian collaborators, discovered a specific brain neuron with a central role in learning. This study, published in Neuron, may have a bearing on the potential for counteracting memory loss in Alzheimer’s disease.

When a person with dementia forgets having just eaten dinner, it is due to hippocampus damage. In contrast, the same person can describe in vivid detail a fishing trip to Norway 40 years ago. Both cases entail the use of episodic memory, the brain’s storage of events in which we have been personally involved. Dementia diseases impair the ability to form new memories, especially of events since the onset of the disease.

Researchers at Uppsala University have now, jointly with Brazilian colleagues, found certain neurons in the brain that play a crucial part in learning. The same research group had previously discovered ‘gatekeeper cells’ or, in technical parlance, OLM (Oriens-lacunosum moleculare) cells. These are located in the hippocampus, the brain area known to be active in forming new memories. The new findings from Klas Kullander’s research group show that OLM cells’ activity affects the encoding of memories in the brain.

Continue reading “Neuroscientists Improve Memory Formation, Provide Hope for Alzheimer’s Patients” »