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Brain
Brain-to-brain communication over the Internet
By Darren Quick
22:14 October 6, 2009 PDT
Brain-Computer Interfacing (BCI) is a hot area of research. In the past year alone we’ve looked at a system to allow people to control a robotic arm and another that enables users to control an ASIMO robot with nothing but the power of thought. Such systems rely on the use of an electroencephalograph (EEG) to capture brain waves and translate them into commands to control a machine. Now researchers at the University of Southampton have used a similar technique to show it is possible to transmit thoughts from one person to another. Read More
Mind-reading brain probe could unlock motor control for quadriplegics
By Loz Blain
15:16 September 4, 2009 PDT
While Honda is taking a benign and non-invasive approach to the coveted brain-machine interface, British researchers are experimenting with a sensor array that is actually implanted in the brain. Dr. Jon Spratley's "multi-contact brain probe" is designed to be injected into the tissue of the brain with a fine needle, where it will sit, monitoring electrical impulses across the brain's motor cortex and relaying them wirelessly to an external device. Spratley believes the technology could unlock a range of bionic possibilities for quadriplegics, who could, for example, learn to control a wheelchair or computer mouse using the same brain commands that used to operate their arms and legs. Read More
Painting brain tumors with nanoparticles may help defeat cancer
22:52 August 12, 2009 PDT
Nanotechnology is preoccupying science to the point where it's starting to seem unremarkable. But a group of researchers from the University of Washington has released findings that could profoundly improve the chances of surviving brain cancer. The team has developed a fluorescent nanoparticle that is capable of penetrating – for the first time – the blood-brain barrier without damaging it. The fluoro nanoparticle targets tumors using a derivative of scorpion venom and enables precise imaging of the size and location of cancerous growths. When the particles meet the tumor, they light up like Christmas. Read More
Scientist predicts functional artificial brain in 10 years
By Paul Lester
02:29 July 29, 2009 PDT
The jury is out on whether scientific and technological advancement will ultimately sound the death-knell for the human race, but such concerns have not stopped Henry Markram, director of the Blue Brain Project, from enthusing about the potential benefits of a synthetic human brain at TED Global 2009. Read More
Swearing proven to have a 'pain-lessening effect'
By Gizmag Team
06:34 July 27, 2009 PDT
Swearing has been around for centuries and is an almost universal human linguistic phenomenon. Now researchers have determined that swearing can have a ‘pain-lessening effect.’ Swearing taps into emotional brain centers and appears to arise in the right brain, whereas most language production occurs in the left cerebral hemisphere of the brain. The research shows one potential reason why swearing developed and why it persists. Read More
What’s on your mind – microelectrodes offer poke free brain control
By Darren Quick
18:01 July 3, 2009 PDT
The brain is one of our most delicate organs. It’s not really meant to be prodded and poked, hence the nice protective skull surrounding it. That fragility makes experimental devices that use tiny electrodes poking into the brain to help paralyzed people use computers and potentially let amputees control bionic limbs, a risky proposition. But now a new University of Utah study shows that brain signals controlling arm movements can be detected accurately using new microelectrodes that sit on the brain, but don't penetrate it. Read More
Early detection of Alzheimer’s disease using x-rays
By Darren Quick
22:42 June 21, 2009 PDT
A highly detailed x-ray imaging technique previously been used to examine tumors in breast tissue and cartilage in knee and ankle joints could used for early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory are the first to test the technique’s ability to visualize a class of minuscule plaques that are a hallmark feature of Alzheimer’s disease. Read More
If you want to solve a problem - forget about it
By David Greig
21:19 May 14, 2009 PDT
If you think letting your mind wander is unproductive then you may be in for a big surprise. A recent study at the University of British Columbia found that our brains are much more active when we daydream than previously thought. What is surprising is that the study also found that brain areas associated with complex problem-solving – previously thought to go dormant when we daydream – are actually more active than when we focus on routine tasks. Read More
Researchers develop smart monitoring device for brain injury
By Darren Quick
01:41 May 8, 2009 PDT
A multi-purpose “lab on a tube” developed by Engineers at the University of Cincinnati (UC) could provide significant advance in the treatment of traumatic brain injury. A serious knock on the head results in not only the initial damage, but a second wave of injury caused by swelling and lack of oxygen among other factors. Currently, the status of these injuries can only be intermittently examined, but the “lab on a tube” gives medicos the capability to continuously monitor crucial physiological characteristics. Read More
Honda's Brain-Machine Interface: controlling robots by thoughts alone
By Loz Blain
00:25 April 2, 2009 PDT
Honda has taken some very significant steps into what could be an absolute revolution in human-computer interface. Honda Research Institute, Japan, has demonstrated a Brain-Machine Interface (BMI) that enables a user to control an ASIMO robot using nothing more than thought. Wearing a headset containing both electroencephalography (EEG) and near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) sensors, the user simply imagines moving either his right hand, left hand, tongue or feet - and ASIMO makes a corresponding movement. The system is still huge and slow, and the commands are quite crude and imprecise - but Honda's baby steps represent a huge leap in technology. The next task is to refine the system to work with fine motor controls, add the ability to decode non-motor brain signals and speed it all up. Then, the doors will be open for a whole range of machines that can sense your thoughts, intentions and feelings, and act directly upon them. BMI has staggering potential - this is just the beginning. Read More
Star Wars Force Trainer in action
By Darren Quick
20:31 March 23, 2009 PDT
What kid hasn’t lain in bed at night and tried to transport some object to them using just the power of their mind, just to see if maybe that Force thing was actually real? I’ll admit I did. Of course nothing happened, but a new toy is designed to give players the feeling that they do have the Force flowing through them by harnessing brainwaves to "levitate" a ball. Gizmag’s resident Jedi Master Loz Blain got a first hand look at the Force Trainer. Read More
Music does indeed improve the mind
By Mike Hanlon
21:48 March 16, 2009 PDT
March 17, 2009 A number of studies over the years have reported positive associations between music experience and increased abilities in non-musical (e.g., linguistic, mathematical, and spatial) domains in children. Now a new study, published this week in the Journal Psychology of Music, report that children exposed to a multi-year programme of music tuition involving training in increasingly complex rhythmic, tonal, and practical skills display superior cognitive performance in reading skills compared with their non-musically trained peers. Read More
Neuroscientists identify the neural circuitry of first impressions
By Mike Hanlon
21:06 March 8, 2009 PDT
You only get one chance to make a first impression, and it had better be a good one. When encountering someone for the first time, we are often quick to judge whether we like that person, and research shows that people make relatively accurate and persistent evaluations based on rapid observations of even less than half a minute. Now neuroscientists at New York University and Harvard Universityhave identified the neural systems involved in forming first impressions of others. Read More
Memory surgery: common drug takes the panic out of traumatic memories
By Loz Blain
14:56 February 17, 2009 PST
Memory-induced panic attacks can be absolutely crippling for sufferers of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) - the suffocating, gripping fear associated with traumatic memories can destroy victims' careers, relationships and the normal functioning of their lives. But a team of Dutch clinical psychologists are developing an almost magical cure, using a single dose of a common and fairly harmless beta-blocking drug that seems to be able to separate the panic emotion from the factual elements of the memory - leaving patients with an apparently lasting ability to recall and talk about the traumatic incident without the usual devastating rush of fear. Read More
Wheelchair-mounted robotic arm controlled by thought alone
By Kyle Sherer
20:39 February 10, 2009 PST
Researchers at the University of South Florida have designed a system that uses an Electroencephalograph (EEG) to read the brain waves of wheelchair-bound people and allows them to control a robotic arm with their thoughts. The Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) captures P300 brain wave responses, the consistently detectable brain waves associated with decision making, and transmits instructions to the robo-arm “without the user moving a muscle.” Read More
Miniscule motor swims through the bloodstream
00:15 January 30, 2009 PST
Researchers from Monash University in Australia are working on microbot motors designed to swim through the human bloodstream. Dubbed the "Proteus" after the miniature submarine that traveled through the body in the 1966 sci-fi flick, Fantastic Voyage, the tiny piezoelectric motor is just 250 micrometers or a quarter of a millimetre wide - that's around 2.5 times the width of a human hair. Read More
Scientists find marijuana reduces memory impairment
By Mike Hanlon
20:03 January 27, 2009 PST
As difficult as some of our readers might find it to believe, researchers have found that specific elements of marijuana can be good for the aging brain by reducing inflammation and possibly even stimulating the formation of new brain cells. The research suggests that the development of a legal drug that contains certain properties similar to those in marijuana might help prevent or delay the onset of Alzheimer's disease. If you can’t wait for the drug to be developed, and don’t fancy coping with getting stoned every morning, Science Magazine has an interesting article about an alternative – dramatically reducing your calorific intake is also beneficial for memory. Read More
4D technique promises new insights into brain function
By Darren Quick
19:14 January 22, 2009 PST
January 23, 2009 It’s kind of ironic that the very organ that gives us our intelligence and understanding of the world around us is also the one we understand the least. Now a novel 4D colorimetric technique developed by researchers at Florida Atlantic University, (FAU), that simultaneously maps four dimensions of brain data, (magnitude, 2D of cortical surface and time), in EEG signals could dramatically change the way neuroscientists are able to understand how the brain operates. The technique makes it possible to observe and interpret oscillatory activity of the entire brain as it evolves in time, millisecond by millisecond, so that for the first time, true episodes of brain coordination can be spotted directly in EEG records and carefully analyzed. Read More
Visualizing data from the visual cortex: one step closer to dream recording?
By Darren Quick
18:55 December 11, 2008 PST
Dream analysis could be set to become a whole lot easier with news that a Japanese research team has created a technology that could eventually display images from people’s dreams on a computer screen. So far the team at the ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories has only managed to reproduce simple images from the brain, but, “by applying this technology, it may become possible to record and replay subjective images that people perceive like dreams," the private institute said in a statement. Read More
The real-life Minority Report computer interface
By Kyle Sherer
14:23 November 30, 2008 PST
The second best thing about the film Minority Report has to be the glove-controlled, wall-sized computer display (first place goes to the jetpacks). Oblong Industries is working on a computer interface that operates in a similar way – and rather than a case of tech imitating art, the Minority Report computer was actually based off early Oblong designs. Read More
Brainwave controlled video game concept unveiled
By Darren Quick
00:21 October 8, 2008 PDT
With many people probably thinking that computer games are a sedentary enough pastime as it is - with the possible exception of the Wii - the prospect of games that don’t even require the lifting of a finger to operate a controller might not be great news for parents hoping to get their couch-bound prodigies moving. That hasn’t stopped wearable consumer bio-sensors manufacturer, NeuroSky, Inc., demonstrating a brainwave-controlled video game at the Tokyo Game Show 2008. The technical demonstration based on a new game concept being jointly developed with Square Enix Co., Ltd. featured the NeuroSky commercial headset, dubbed the MindSet, operating in conjunction with Windows PC machines. Read More
Specific brainwave patterns occur prior to a “Eureka Moment”
By Jack Martin
08:53 September 9, 2008 PDT
September 9, 2008 “Eureka” (Greek for "I have found it") is an exclamation used as an interjection to proclaim an epiphanic discovery. Famously pronounced in the bathtub by Archimedes when he suddenly understood that the volume of irregular objects could be calculated with precision through the displacement of water, a previously intractable problem. Real-world problems come in two broad types: those requiring sequential reasoning and those requiring transformative reasoning: a break from past thinking followed by an insight. It is this moment, where a problem solver makes a quantum leap of understanding with no conscious forewarning, that we term the “Eureka moment.” A new university study in which brainwaves of humans were measured as they attempted to solve puzzles that call for intuitive strategies and novel insight has found an array of specific brainwave patterns occur several (up to 8) seconds before the participant is consciously aware of an insight. Read More
Robot controlled by biological brain
By Kyle Sherer
10:27 August 18, 2008 PDT
The University of Reading has designed a robot that is controlled by 300,000 cultured rat neurons. The team anticipates that the behavior of the rat neurons will provide insight into how brains store data, which could lead to a better understanding of disorders such as Alzheimer’s Disease, Parkinson’s Disease, and strokes. Read More
Understanding thought: new computational modeling sheds light on how the brain works
By Kyle Sherer
21:21 June 9, 2008 PDT
Scientists at Carnegie Mellon University have developed a computational model that can predict the unique brain activation patterns associated with concrete nouns with a mean accuracy of 77 percent. Read More
"Brain Age 2" released for Nintendo DS
By Emily Clark
17:18 August 21, 2007 PDT
August 22, 2007 Nintendo has launched its second release in the burgeoning world of brain games in effort to attract non-gamers to pick up the controller. Brain games are designed as exercise for our grey matter based on the notion that our neural systems are constantly changing throughout life and that effective instruction can actually alter brain function. Read More
Terotech
- November 21, 2009 @ 19:38 UTC
