Category: Mind Philosophy
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Turn off consciousness... So?
That's what doctors at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., inadvertently discovered while evaluating a 54-year-old woman with epilepsy. The researchers realized that by using electrodes to deliver tiny jolts of electricity to a particular region of the woman's brain, they could control her consciousness almost as if they had an on-off switch. (1)…
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Scanning the brain. So what?
DARPA wants to build a computer that mimics the human brain. [1] At the same time scientists have shown that it is possible to reconstruct thoughts more accurately than ever before by analysing MRI images of the brain (along with the use of an elegant mathematical model). [2] In some years we will be able to…
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fMRI, brain, creativity, scientific stupidity.
For the first time, neuroscientists have used fMRI scanners to track the brain activity of both experienced and novice writers as they sat down — or, in this case, lay down — to turn out a piece of fiction. The researchers, led by Martin Lotze of the University of Greifswald in Germany, observed a broad…
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Absolute synchronization. Non-thinking...
The human mind can rapidly absorb and analyze new information as it flits from thought to thought. These quickly changing brain states may be encoded by synchronization of brain waves across different brain regions, according to a new study from MIT neuroscientists. The researchers found that as monkeys learn to categorize different patterns of dots,…
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Sleep tight. Learn. Remember...
Rest easy after learning a new skill. Experiments in mice suggest that a good night's sleep helps us lay down memories by promoting the growth of new connections between brain cells. Neuroscientists believe that memory involves the modification of synapses, which connect brain cells, and numerous studies published over the past decade have shown that sleep…
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