Technojection

Decoding brain activity to identify imagined speech

2012-02-20T01:45:00.003-05:00

Neuroscientists at University of California, Berkeley have succeeded in decoding electrical activity in the brain’s temporal lobe — the seat of the auditory system — as a person listens to normal conversation. Brain activity was recorded using implanted electrode array. Based on this correlation between sound and brain activity, they then were able to predict the words the person had heard solely from the temporal lobe activity.

[ more ] [ paper ]

Getting the measure of MRI

2012-02-19T15:19:00.002-05:00

Oxford University scientists have come up with a new approach for measuring neurophysiology with quantitative images of cerebrovascular parameters are created from a single scan. This new approac improves functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) that produces pictures of changes in brain activity into a full numerical measure of how the brain is working.Doctors may be able to use this new MRI approach to provide a lot more clinically useful information about patients coming in with strokes, brain injuries or a variety of other conditions.

[ more ] [ paper ]

The Mystery Behind Anesthesia

2012-02-19T15:12:00.000-05:00

Mapping how our neural circuits change under the influence of anesthesia could shed light on one of neuroscience's most perplexing riddles: consciousness.

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The Pill That Could Cure Depression by Growing Your Brain

2012-01-13T12:09:00.002-05:00

If you are depressed, or schizophrenic or have Alzheimer's, scientists say you probably have a shrunken hippocampus. The good news: a drug that just entered human trials promises to re-grow that part of the brain.

It's an entirely new approach to treating clinical depression, which is the first of several diseases scientists at biotech company Neuralstem are hoping to address with their experimental oral drug. Most antidepressants work on brain chemistry, tweaking levels of neurotransmitters including serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine. This is the first drug that aims to re-grow patients' atrophied brains.

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Physiological Parameter Monitoring from Optical Recordings with a Mobile Phone

2011-12-04T18:54:00.001-05:00

Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) researchers have developed a smart phone app that can measure heart rhythm and rate, respiration rate, and blood oxygen saturation using the phone’s built-in video camera.

As the camera’s light penetrates the skin, it reflects off pulsing blood in the finger. The app can correlate subtle shifts in the color of the reflected light with changes in the patient’s vital signs. Measurement of respiratory rate uses an algorithm developed for use with a pulse-oximeter, based on amplitude and frequency modulation sequences within the light signal.

Ref.: Scully, C. et al., Physiological Parameter Monitoring from Optical Recordings with a Mobile Phone,IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, 2011; [DOI: 10.1109/TBME.2011.2163157]

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New ‘smart’ material could help tap medical potential of tissue-penetrating light

2011-12-04T14:22:00.001-05:00

Scientists at the University of California, San Diego Skaggs School Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences report development and successful initial testing of the first practical “smart” material to use a form of light that can penetrate four inches into the human body, for use in diagnosing diseases and engineering new human tissues in the lab.They used near-infrared (NIR) light (just beyond what humans can see), which penetrates through the skin and almost four inches into the body. Low-power NIR does not damage body tissues. However, current NIR-responsive smart materials require high-power NIR light, which could damage cells and tissues.

They developed a new smart polymer (plastic). Hit with low-power NIR, the material breaks apart into small pieces that appear to be nontoxic to surrounding tissue. They could put the polymer in an implantable hydrogel, which is a water-containing flexible material used for tissue engineering and drug delivery. A hydrogel with the new polymer could release medications or imaging agents when hit with NIR. “To the best of our knowledge, this is the first example of a polymeric material capable of disassembly into small molecules in response to harmless levels of irradiation,” say the researchers.

A practical "smart" material that may supply the missing link in efforts to medically use a form of light that can penetrate four inches into the human body (credit: University of California, San Diego)

Ref.: Nadezda Fomina, et al., Low Power, Biologically Benign NIR Light Triggers Polymer Disassembly, Macromolecules, 2011; 44 (21): 8590 [DOI: 10.1021/ma201850q]

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‘Wearable robot’ arm improves performance of brain-controlled device

2011-12-04T14:11:00.001-05:00

The performance of a brain-machine interface designed to help paralyzed subjects move objects with their thoughts is improved with the addition of a robotic arm that provides sensory feedback, a new study from the University of Chicago finds.

Devices that translate brain activity into the movement of a computer cursor or an external robotic arm have already proven successful in humans. But in these early systems, vision was the only tool a subject could use to help control the motion.

Adding a robot arm that provided kinesthetic information about movement and position in space improved the performance of monkeys using a brain-machine interface in a study published today in The Journal of Neuroscience. Incorporating this sense may improve the design of “wearable robots” to help patients with spinal cord injuries, researchers said.

Aided by a robotic exoskeleton, a monkey can hit the target faster and more directly

(Hatsopoulos, et al. The Journal of Neuroscience)

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A Terminator-style contact-lens display

2011-12-04T14:05:00.001-05:00

Bringing us a step closer to a Terminator-style augmented-reality display, University of Washington engineers have constructed an experimental contact lens with a single-pixel embedded light-emitting diode (LED) and tested it in a rabbit.

The LED lights up when it receives energy from a remote radio frequency transmission, picked up by an antenna around the edge and collected via a silicon power harvesting and radio integrated circuit.

Single-pixel wireless contact lens display (credit: University of Washington/Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering)

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Awareness in Vegetative Patients

2011-11-22T16:27:00.001-05:00

Three brain injury patients diagnosed as being in a vegetative state—meaning they do not respond to their environment—may actually be conscious. Using EEG (electroencephalography) to measure their brain activity, researchers found that the patients could follow simple commands.

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Fingertip Microscope Can Peek Inside a Moving Animal

2011-10-09T21:46:00.000-04:00

An inexpensive microscope about the size of a gumdrop could allow scientists to peer into the inner workings of living, moving animals much more easily. The device is small and light enough—it weighs less than two grams—to be mounted atop a rodent's head, where it can capture the activity of up to 200 individual brain cells as the animal explores its environment. The device could help scientists learn how the brain directs movement.

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Reconstructing Visual Experiences from Brain Activity Evoked by Natural Movies

2011-09-23T13:56:00.000-04:00

Using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) and computational models, UC Berkeley researchers have succeeded in decoding and reconstructing people’s dynamic visual experiences – in this case, watching Hollywood movie trailers.

[ more ] [ publication ]

An Objective Way to Measure Pain

2011-09-15T15:44:00.002-04:00

Researchers found that by pairing functional MRI (fMRI) with a machine-learning algorithm, they could detect specific patterns of brain activity that predicted whether someone was experiencing pain or not.

[ more ] [ publication ]

Word association with brain scans

2011-09-11T00:17:00.000-04:00

In an effort to understand what happens in the brain when a person reads or considers such abstract ideas as love or justice, Princeton researchers have for the first time matched images of brain activity with categories of words related to the concepts a person is thinking about. The results could lead to a better understanding of how people consider meaning and context when reading or thinking.

[ more ] [ also ]

The Petri Dish Gets a Makeover

2011-08-24T13:18:00.004-04:00

A nanopore membrane creates faster, surer cultures for everything from hospital diagnostics to water-quality checks. A new type of diagnostic could let hospital laboratories identify the presence of dangerous bacteria up to five times faster than conventional methods. The test could reduce unnecessary antibiotic use and provide more reliable water-quality test results. The key to the process is a membrane with nanosized pores, which enable rapid growth and identification of live organisms.

[ more ]

Stick-On Electronic Tattoos

2011-08-18T18:52:00.001-04:00

Researchers have made stretchable, ultrathin electronics that cling to skin like a temporary tattoo and can measure electrical activity from the body. These electronic tattoos could allow doctors to diagnose and monitor conditions like heart arrhythmia or sleep disorders noninvasively.

[ more ]

Social deficits associated with autism, schizophrenia induced in mice

2011-08-18T18:44:00.001-04:00

Researchers used light to switch on, and then switch off, social-behavior deficits in mice that resemble those seen in people with autism and schizophrenia, thanks to a technology that allows scientists to precisely manipulate nerve activity in the brain. In synchrony with this experimentally induced socially aberrant behavior, the mice exhibited a brain-wave pattern called gamma oscillation that has been associated with autism and schizophrenia in humans, the researchers say.

The findings, published online in Nature on July 27, lend credence to a hypothesis that has been long floated but hard to test, until now. They mark the first demonstration, the researchers said, that elevating the brain’s susceptibility to stimulation can produce social deficits resembling those of autism and schizophrenia, and that then restoring the balance eases those symptoms.

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Alzheimer's Detected 20 Years before Symptoms Show

2011-07-23T22:30:00.003-04:00

For the first time, scientists have been able to detect signs of Alzheimer's disease 10 to 20 years before the onset of dementia. The study, presented Wednesday at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference in Paris, focused on people with rare, inherited forms of the disease who develop it relatively young, with symptoms beginning in the patients' 30s, 40s, and 50s. Researchers say the results will help them test drugs that could prevent or slow the progression of the disease, not only in these groups, but also in people with the more common late-onset variety.

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Artificial pancreas to ease diabetes burden

2011-07-02T22:14:00.001-04:00

Mayo Clinic endocrinologists are developing an artificial pancreas that will deliver insulin automatically and with an individualized precision never before possible.The “Closed Loop System” under development includes a blood sugar monitor, an automatic insulin pump, a set of activity monitors that attach to the body, and a central processing unit.

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iPhone app lets the blind see through the crowd’s eyes

2011-06-23T12:37:00.002-04:00

Using an iPhone app called VizWiz, the blind can now receive realtime assistance from sighted workers on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk service.

With the app, blind users use their phone to take a picture of something they want identified, have it sent automatically to a recruited worker on the Internet, and receive back an answer, all within an average time of 27 seconds. Yasmina, a student at the University of Rochester, used the app to identify a can of coconut milk amongst other canned goods.

During a volunteer test session, participants asked questions like “What denomination is this bill?,” “Do you see picnic tables across the parking lot?,” and “What temperature is my oven set to?”

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Lasers Made from Human Cells

2011-06-18T23:54:00.004-04:00


Living cell with green fluorescent protein

A laser based on living cells has been created by researchers at Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.Living lasers have a few basic parts that are drawn from the same list as any laser. First, the researchers genetically modified human liver cells so that they produce large amounts of green fluorescent proteins that are scattered throughout the cell. A cell carrying these proteins acts as the "gain medium"—the part of the laser that amplifies light energy.

Like any laser, the cell laser needs an energy source to "pump" it and increase the power of the light it can emit. The researchers pumped the living lasers by pulsing the cells with light through a microscope. As light bounces around inside the cell and is re-emitted by the fluorescent proteins, it's amplified, increasing in power before being emitted in a coherent beam. To keep the light bouncing around as long as possible, to gain as much power as possible, the Boston group placed these cells inside a biocompatible optical cavity—essentially a tiny, highly reflective, cell-shaped hole.

[ more ]

Human skin cells converted directly into functional neurons

2011-05-31T23:23:00.000-04:00

Human skin cells can be converted directly into functional neurons in a period of four to five weeks with the addition of just four proteins, according to a study by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. The finding is significant because it bypasses the need to first create induced pluripotent stem cells, and may make it much easier to generate patient- or disease-specific neurons for study in a laboratory dish.

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Identifying brain networks for specific mental states

2011-05-31T23:17:00.000-04:00

Researchers at Stanford University have determined from brain-imaging data whether experimental subjects are recalling events of the day, singing silently to themselves, performing mental arithmetic, or merely relaxing.

In the study, subjects engaged in these mental activities at their own natural pace, rather than in a controlled, precisely timed fashion as is typically required in experiments involving fMRI. The team used uninterrupted scan periods ranging from 30 seconds to 10 minutes in length.

The team assembled images from each separate scan. Instead of comparing “on-task” images with “off-task” images to see which regions were active during a distinct brain state compared with when the brain wasn’t in that state, the researchers focused on which collections, or networks, of brain regions were active in concert with one another throughout a given state

The researchers found that distinct mental states can be distinguished based on unique patterns of activity in coordinated networks — brain regions that are synchronously communicating with one another.

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New audio coding system to improve videoconferencing

2011-05-31T23:13:00.001-04:00

A new codec (data coding system) called Enhanced Low Delay Advanced Audio Coding (AAC-ELD) developed by researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS has solved a major problem with Skype and other videoconference calls: latency (annoying sound delay between participants).

Their new Enhanced Low Delay Advanced Audio Coding (AAC-ELD) allows for latency only about 15 milliseconds. In the process, they also managed to reduce the audio data to less than one-thirtieth of its original size without major loss of sound quality, thus reducing the required bandwidth.

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The next generation of E-ink may be on cloth

2011-05-06T12:52:00.001-04:00

E Ink is developing a displays that can be printed on materials other than paper, including cloth. Envelopes made for e-ink could be made to be reusable, eliminating waste, by allowing for quick and easy address changes, without the need for multiple packing slips and a new envelop every time.

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How Bacteria Could Generate Radio waves

2011-05-01T15:14:00.001-04:00

Radio-frequency emissions from certain bacteria could be generated by free electrons moving around DNA loops as they transition between quantum energy levels, researchers at Northeastern University and University of Perugia suggest, based on modeling. The frequencies would be at 0.5, 1 and 1.5 kilohertz, which are the frequencies that have been measured in E Coli bacteria by Luc Montagnier, who won the Nobel Prize for medicine in 2008. They could possibly be used for intercellular communication.

[ source ] [ more ]

Questionnaire may help predict autism at 1 year

2011-04-28T19:29:00.002-04:00

A quick and simple questionnaire given to parents during a regular checkup in a pediatrician's office may help detect autism in children as young as 1 year old, a new study suggests.

The 24-item questionnaire, which assesses a child's ability to communicate with eye contact, sounds, and gestures, may steer infants who show early signs of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) into appropriate treatment at earlier ages, the researchers say.

[ more ]

Healing Blindness in Mice

2011-04-28T11:44:00.000-04:00

Viruses can deliver light-sensitive proteins to specific cells in the retinas of blind mice, allowing rudimentary vision, according to new research. Although previous studies have shown that the light-sensitive proteins can be beneficial, the delivery methods were not practical for humans. The viral-delivery method is similar to ones already used in human gene therapy.

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Sleep-deprived brains turn themselves off

2011-04-28T11:40:00.000-04:00

Researchers know that sleep deprivation makes people and animals less functional. Now a team of researchers in Wisconsin and Italy has found that in rats kept awake past their bed times, their brains begin to turn themselves off, neuron by neuron, though the rat is still awake.

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Neurological Basis for Embarrassment

2011-04-16T00:02:00.000-04:00

Recording people belting out an old Motown tune and then asking them to listen to their own singing without the accompanying music seems like an unusually cruel form of punishment. But for a team of scientists at the University of California, San Francisco and University of California, Berkeley, this exact Karaoke experiment has revealed what part of the brain is essential for embarrassment.

The twist to the experiment was that most of the subjects had neurodegenerative diseases, which helped scientists identify a thumb-sized bit of tissue in the right hemisphere of the front part of the brain called the “pregenual anterior cingulate cortex” as integral to embarrassment.

Knowing that people lose their ability to be embarrassed and which part of the brain governs that ability may suggest ways to help diagnose people with certain neurodegenerative diseases earlier.

[ more ]

Control your laptop with your eye gaze

2011-03-17T22:00:00.000-04:00

A camera over the screen is a standard feature for laptops. But only Lenovo's new model has a pair of cameras below its display to track the movements of a user's eyes. The prototype laptop can be controlled with eye motions, reducing the need to use the mouse and making it faster to navigate through information such as maps or menus.

[ more ]

Better Bioimaging with a Liquid Lens

2011-03-17T21:58:00.000-04:00

A new handheld probe uses near-infrared light and a liquid lens to create sharp three-dimensional images of lesions beneath the skin, in a few seconds. The device, allows doctors to peer two millimeters below the skin's surface to see, in particular, whether the cells beneath a mole show signs of being cancerous. If proved reliable, the probe could sharply reduce the number of biopsies that are necessary.

[ more ]

Wearable Scanner Opens New Frontier in Neuroscience

2011-03-17T21:52:00.000-04:00

A tiny wearable /mobile PET (Positron Emission Tomography) scanner has been used to track chemical activity in the brains of unrestrained animals for the first time. By revealing neurological circuitry as the subjects perform normal tasks, researchers say, the technology could greatly broaden the understanding of learning, addiction, depression, and other conditions.

[ more ]

Computers Get in Touch with Your Emotions

2011-02-28T00:15:00.000-05:00

Computers could be a lot more useful if they paid attention to how you felt. With the emergence of new tools that can measure a person's biological state, computer interfaces are starting to do exactly that: take users' feelings into account.

[ more ]

The Healing Power of Light

2011-02-14T12:13:00.000-05:00

A new polymer material that can repeatedly heal itself at room temperature when exposed to ultraviolet light presents the tantalizing possibility of products that can repair themselves when damaged. Possibilities include self-healing medical implants, cars, or even airplane parts.

[ more ]

Kinect Creators Making PC Controller

2011-02-09T16:37:00.001-05:00

PrimeSense, the privately held Israeli company that licensed core Kinect technology to Microsoft, announced that it is teaming up with PC and peripheral maker Asus to create a similar device for the PC.

[ more ]

Thought-controlled iPad app

2011-02-09T16:28:00.002-05:00

InteraXon demonstrated two new applications for its headband based BCI technology at CES 2011. It uses headphones equipped with a pair of sensors that sit against the user’s left ear and forehead, a simplified EEG-like system made portable.

[ more ]

Google Art Project

2011-02-03T11:04:00.001-05:00

Google has recently launched Art Project, a collaboration with some of the world's most famous museums, with the goal of enabling people to visit and see art. Google is utilizing the same technology in Google Earth to map the art projects that can be zoomed in investigated in fine detail.

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Growth Hormone Also a Memory Booster

2011-01-26T23:30:00.000-05:00

Researchers have found that insulin-like growth factor II (IGF-II), a naturally occurring hormone, can boost memory retention in animals. The discovery offers a rare glimpse into a mysterious stage of the learning process, and it may one day provide scientists with a new way to treat memory impairments, such as those caused by dementia.

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IBM’s Top Five Predictions for 2015

2010-12-26T17:40:00.002-05:00

IBM has unveiled its fifth annual “Next Five in Five” — five technology innovations that have the potential to change the way people work, live and play over the next five years:

You’ll beam up your friends in 3-D
Batteries will breathe air to power our devices
You won’t need to be a scientist to save the planet
Your commute will be personalized
Computers will help energize your city

Where unconscious memories form

2010-12-19T18:16:00.001-05:00

A small area deep in the brain called the perirhinal cortex is critical for forming unconscious conceptual memories, researchers at the UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain have found. The perirhinal cortex was thought to be involved, like the neighboring hippocampus, in “declarative” or conscious memories, but the new results show that the picture is more complex, said lead author Wei-chun Wang, a graduate student at UC Davis.

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Infrared add-on could let standard cameras see cancer

2010-12-12T16:03:00.000-05:00

Technical University of Denmark in Roskilde researchers are developing a device that can convert mid-infrared radiation into visible light. Attached to a digital camera fitted with an infrared flash, it could detect tumors by recording the telltale pattern of infrared light they reflect.

The device could be placed in front of a digital camera lens like a filter, and be used to take thermal photographs or video.Current mid-infrared color imagers need to run at -200°C and cost around $100,000; an upconversion imager would run at room temperature and cost about $10,000.

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What Are the Benefits of Being Left Handed?

2010-12-05T21:29:00.003-05:00

According to ABC News, lefties are "more likely to be schizophrenic, alcoholic, delinquent, dyslexic, and have Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, as well as mental disabilities." Lefties are also more accident-prone. In some cultures, they're persecuted based on superstitions. With all these drawbacks, it's easy to overlook the advantages of being left-handed, but those advantages might be substantial. Here's a list posted by Emma Taylor: 10 benefits of being left-handed.

Tracking the Brain's Ability to Bluff

2010-11-03T02:45:00.000-04:00

Brain-imaging experiments show how bargaining games could provide insights into psychiatric disorders. The ability to infer another person's state of mind—including his or her perception of you—is an integral component of human interaction. To make business deals, maintain good relationships, and to play a winning hand of poker, we must be able to surmise to some extent what a client, spouse, or friend is thinking. But that skill can go awry in a number of psychiatric disorders, including autism and borderline personality disorder.

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Sniff Control

2010-10-19T22:32:00.000-04:00

For severely paralyzed, "locked in" individuals, sniffing could become a way to communicate with the outside world. Researchers have developed a device that converts nasal pressure into electrical signals, which could enable paralyzed people to type text, surf the Web, and control wheelchairs.

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Repetitive head trauma can cause ALS

2010-10-10T17:52:00.002-04:00

Recent evidence suggests that the incidence of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is increased in association with head injury. And a new study published at Journal of Neuropathology and Experimental Neurology reports the first causal evidence about repetitive head trauma experienced in collision sports might be associated with the development of a motor neuron disease.

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Remote Control of Brain Activity Using Ultrasound

2010-09-10T22:06:00.000-04:00

A novel technology that implements transcranial pulsed ultrasound to remotely and directly stimulate brain circuits without requiring surgery has been developed. The technology has a spatial resolution approximately five times greater than transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and can exert its effects upon subcortical brain circuits deep within the brain.

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Japan develops 'touchable' 3D TV technology

2010-08-27T15:46:00.000-04:00

A Japanese research team said Thursday it had developed the world's first 3D television system that allows users to touch, pinch or poke images floating in front of them.

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Biosynthetic corneas restore vision in humans

2010-08-27T15:44:00.003-04:00

A new study from researchers in Canada and Sweden has shown that biosynthetic corneas can help regenerate and repair damaged eye tissue and improve vision in humans.

They initiated a clinical trial in 10 Swedish patients with advanced keratoconus or central corneal scarring. Each patient underwent surgery on one eye to remove damaged corneal tissue and replace it with the biosynthetic cornea, made from synthetically cross-linked recombinant human collagen.

Over two years of follow-up, the researchers observed that cells and nerves from the patients’ own corneas had grown into the implant, resulting in a “regenerated” cornea that resembled normal, healthy tissue. Patients did not experience any rejection reaction or require long-term immune suppression, which are serious side effects associated with the use of human donor tissue.

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The biosynthetic corneas also became sensitive to touch and began producing normal tears to keep the eye oxygenated. Vision improved in six of the ten patients, and after contact lens fitting, vision was comparable to conventional corneal transplantation with human donor tissue.

Regrowing Teeth

2010-08-16T22:58:00.000-04:00

Researchers are finding ways to use stem cells to regrow teeth--a potentially easier and healthier alternative to dentures and dental implants. A Japanese team from the Tokyo University of Science, led by associate professor Takashi Tsuji, reported in Nature Methods that it had successfully regrown a tooth from cells extracted from mouse embryos. The researchers were able to transplant the tooth into an adult mouse, and the tooth bud continued to grow to full size.

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Autism diagnosis by brain scan

2010-08-14T22:51:00.000-04:00

Scientists from the Institute of Psychiatry (IoP) at King’s College London have developed a 15-minute MRI brain scan that can identify adults with autism with over 90 per cent accuracy. The method could lead to the screening for autism spectrum disorders in children in the future.

MRI scans were used to reconstruct 3D image of the brain that could be assessed for structure, shape and thickness – all intricate measurements that reveal Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) at its root. By studying the complex and subtle make-up of grey matter in the brain, the scientists can use biological markers, rather than personality traits, to assess whether or not a person has ASD.

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Brain fitness program study reveals visual memory improvement in older adults

2010-08-14T22:47:00.001-04:00

A commercial brain fitness program from Posit Science Corp. has been shown to improve memory in older adults, at least in the period soon after training. The findings are the first to show that practicing simple visual tasks can improve the accuracy of short-term, or “working” visual memory. The research, led by scientists at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), is also one of the first to measure both mental performance and changes in neural activity caused by a cognitive training program.

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Intel Turns to Light to Transfer Data Inside PCs

2010-08-01T22:03:00.000-04:00

Intel on Tuesday announced it had developed a prototype interconnect that uses light to speed up data transmission inside computers at the speed of 50 gigabits per second.

Intel researchers said that the optical technology could ultimately replace the use of copper wires and electrons to carry data inside or around computers. An entire high-definition movie can be transmitted each second with the prototype, the researchers said.

Reprogrammed Stem Cells Remember Their Past

2010-07-26T10:47:00.000-04:00

While reprogrammed stem cells--those derived from fully differentiated adult cells--can be transformed into any type of tissue, scientists have now discovered that they preserve a memory of where they came from. That memory appears to influence the cells' development; reprogrammed stem cells are more easily converted back to their original identity, according to a study released online today in Nature. The findings could affect research into the two main uses for reprogrammed stem cells; growing efforts to study disease in cells derived from patients with those diseases, and the development of replacement cell therapies.

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Fabricating a Multifunctional Fiber

2010-07-12T22:41:00.000-04:00

Fibers that carry light and sense pressure could be used for medical imaging and structural monitoring. Researchers have developed optical fibers that not only carry and modulate light, but also generate and sense pressure changes. The multifunctional fibers could be used to make various types of sensors. The fibers can also be squeezed in a way that modulates an optical signal, making them promising for "smart" textiles.

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Harvesting heat to power electronics

2010-07-01T18:26:00.002-04:00

Thermoelectric (TE) energy harvesting is based on the heat flux through a thermoelectric element. The heat flux is driven by a temperature difference across the element. The generated voltage is proportional to the number of elements and the temperature difference.

The TE-Power Node uses any source of thermal energy to drive a wireless transceiver, storing power in a thin-film battery. The Node is a test bed for designers looking to build the next generation of sensor networks, in which the sensors power themselves by harvesting energy from the environment. The battery stores the power that trickles in from sources such as a warm industrial exhaust pipe and then releases the accumulated energy in a pulse powerful enough to operate the radio. A 10 °C difference in temperature produces enough electricity to transmit 13 bytes of information per second.

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fMRI research on brain activity validated

2010-06-05T11:21:00.002-04:00

In a study published in Nature, a Stanford University-led team has shown that fMRI signals based on elevated levels of oxygenated blood in specific parts of the brain can be caused by activation of local excitatory neurons.

The key experiment involved turning on genetically engineered excitatory neurons in an experimental group of rats in the presence of blue light delivered via a fiber optic cable. The researchers then anesthetized the rats and looked at their brains with fMRI. They found that exciting these defined neurons with the optogenetic light produced the same kind of signals that researchers see in traditional fMRI BOLD experiments — with the same complex patterns and timing. In the control group of rats, which were not genetically altered, no such signals occurred. This showed that true neural excitation indeed produces positive fMRI BOLD signals.

The findings suggest that fMRI can now be used to study the brain-wide impact of changes in neural circuitry, such as ones that may underlie many neurological and psychiatric diseases.

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Caffeine may slow Alzheimer's

2010-06-05T11:20:00.000-04:00

New evidence caffeine may slow Alzheimer's disease and other dementias, restore cognitive function.
Caffeine may be protective against the cognitive decline seen in aging, Parkinson's disease, dementia and Alzheimer's disease, a group of international experts has found.

Papers in the special issue of the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, "Therapeutic Opportunities for Caffeine in Alzheimer's Disease and Other Neurodegenerative Disorders," are available free.

Scientists monitor neuron action potentials optically

2010-05-31T14:37:00.002-04:00

Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg and colleagues in Switzerland and Japan have used fluorescent calcium indicator proteins to optically measure living mice neuron action potentials, as well as the activity of

The only way scientists could do this previously was by inserting invasive electrodes into the nerve tissue or the cells, which does not allow for identifying indivisual cells and damages the tissue.

The new technique allows for investigating how memories are formed and lost and when and where nerve cell activity patterns become altered, as in aging and neurological diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and schizophrenia.

[ more ]

Endometrial stem cells could repair brain cells damaged by Parkinson's disease

2010-05-31T14:21:00.000-04:00

Stem cells derived from the endometrium (uterine lining) and transplanted into the brains of laboratory mice with Parkinson's disease appear to restore functioning of brain cells damaged by the disease, according to a new study by Yale School of Medicine researchers.

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Eye Tracking for Mobile Control

2010-05-31T14:03:00.000-04:00

It's hard sending a text message with arms full of groceries or while wearing winter gloves. Voice control is one alternative to using your fingers, but researchers are also working on other hands-free ways to control mobile devices. A team at Dartmouth College has now created an eye-tracking system that lets a user operate a smart phone with eye movement....

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Projected MultiTouch Screen

2010-04-30T18:26:00.008-04:00

Light Blue Optics' interactive projector transforms any flat surface into a multitouch screen, planned to be released to the market in late 2010. When a person's fingers touch the display, infrared sensors detect the motion and allow the same kinds of interactions that are possible on, say, an iPhone. The product is initially being made available to industrial partners for commercial applications such as interactive displays in retail or educational settings.

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Smart clothes...

2010-04-30T18:26:00.001-04:00

In the emerging 'Internet of Things', everyday objects are becoming networked. Clothing is no exception. It's still early days for Web-enabled clothes - the best example so far is the Nike+ running shoe, which contains sensors that connect to the user's iPod. But expect to see everything from your shirt to your underwear networked in the not too distant future.

In the following list of ten 'smart clothing' items, we showcase Internet pants, a proximity sensing shirt, a heart sensing bra, biosensor underwear, a "thought helmet", and more!

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Brain Waves Predict Suicide Risk

2010-04-26T00:14:00.000-04:00

A new technique might help doctors foresee suicidal thoughts before a patient even has them. Researchers at UCLA are using quantitative EEG (QEEG) to determine how different individuals' brains respond to different antidepressants, trying to find early markers that indicate whether a new therapy will be effective.

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Simultaneous Pen + Touch Direct Input

2010-04-13T22:11:00.002-04:00

pCubee: a Perspective-Corrected Handheld Cubic Display

2010-04-10T23:41:00.000-04:00

Using own skin cells to repair hearts on horizon

2010-03-10T12:00:00.001-05:00

A heart patient's own skin cells soon could be used to repair damaged cardiac tissue thanks to pioneering stem cell research of the University of Houston's newest biomedical scientist, Robert Schwartz.

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A Brain Implant that Uses Light

2010-03-10T12:00:00.000-05:00

Researchers at Medtronic are developing a prototype neural implant that uses light to alter the behavior of neurons in the brain. The device is based on the emerging science of optogenetic neuromodulation, in which specific brain cells are genetically engineered to respond to light. The company plans to market the device to neuroscience researchers and use it for in-house research on the effects of DBS.

[ more ]

Magnesium supplement helps boost brainpower

2010-02-15T00:20:00.003-05:00

Neuroscientists at MIT and Tsinghua University in Beijing show that increasing brain magnesium with a new compound enhanced learning abilities, working memory, and short- and long-term memory in rats. The dietary supplement also boosted older rats' ability to perform a variety of learning tests.

Magnesium, an essential element, is found in dark, leafy vegetables such as spinach and in some fruits. Those who get less than 400 milligrams daily are at risk for allergies, asthma and heart disease, among other conditions.

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Made-to-Order Heart Cells

2010-01-25T23:20:00.001-05:00

Madison, WI-based Cellular Dynamics International (CDI) began shipping heart cells derived from a person's own stem cells. The cells could be useful to researchers studying everything from the toxicity of new or existing drugs to the electrodynamics of both healthy and diseased cardiac cells.

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How to Train the Aging Brain

2010-01-17T17:05:00.000-05:00

Many longheld views, including the one that 40 percent of brain cells are lost, have been overturned.

Memories may not have vanished but have simply been hidden; similarity in sounds can jump-start a brain connection.

Continued brain development and a richer form of learning may require that you "bump up against people and ideas" that are different.

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Neuroengineers silence brain cells with multiple colors of light

2010-01-17T17:02:00.000-05:00

Neuroscientists have developed a way to turn off abnormally active brain cells using multiple colors of light.

This research could prove useful for managing disorders including chronic pain, epilepsy, brain injury and Parkinson's disease.

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Stem Cells Restore Cognitive Abilities Impaired By Brain Tumor Treatment

2010-01-16T18:38:00.001-05:00

Human embryonic stem cells could help people with learning and memory deficits after radiation treatment for brain tumors, suggests a new UC Irvine study.

Research with rats found that transplanted stem cells restored learning and memory to normal levels four months after radiotherapy. In contrast, irradiated rats that didn't receive stem cells experienced a more than 50 percent drop in cognitive function.

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Seats of emotional intelligence found in the brain

2010-01-16T17:55:00.000-05:00

Head injuries sustained by Vietnam veterans have revealed parts of the brain vital for two types of emotional intelligence.

The dorsolateral ventromedial prefrontal cortex of the brain is related to "experiential" emotional intelligence (the capacity to judge emotions in other people), while the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is related to "strategic" emotional intelligence (the ability to plan socially appropriate responses to situations).

Damage to these regions didn't affect cognitive intelligence, suggesting that emotional and general problem-solving tasks are handled independently in the brain.

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Disconnect Between Brain Regions in ADHD

2010-01-16T17:53:00.001-05:00

Two brain areas fail to connect when children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder attempt a task that measures attention, according to researchers at the UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain and M.I.N.D. Institute.

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Giving Electronic Commands With Body Language

2010-01-16T17:52:00.000-05:00

In the coming months, companies will begin selling gesture-powered devices that will allow people to flip channels on the TV or move documents on a computer monitor with simple hand gestures.

Stand in front of a TV armed with a gesture technology camera, and you can turn on the set with a soft punch into the air. Flipping through channels requires a twist of the hand, and raising the volume occurs with an upward pat. If there is a photo on the screen, you can enlarge it by holding your hands in the air and spreading them apart and shrink it by bringing your hands back together.

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Cell phone exposure may protect against and reverse Alzheimer's disease

2010-01-10T23:15:00.000-05:00

A surprising new study in mice provides the first evidence that long-term exposure to electromagnetic waves associated with cell phone use may actually protect against, and even reverse, Alzheimer's disease. The study, led by University of South Florida researchers at the Florida Alzheimer's Disease Research Center (ADRC), was published today in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease.

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Where Did the Time Go?

2010-01-10T23:05:00.000-05:00

New research suggests why time seems to speed up or slow down.

In experiments, psychologists found that subjects underestimated how much time had passed by three months, but the more intervening related developments came to mind, the longer away the original event seemed.

They also found that when people were tricked into believing that more time had passed than was really the case, they assumed they must have been having more fun. The perception heightened their enjoyment of music and eased their annoyance at doing menial tasks.

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Intel: Chips in brains will control computers by 2020

2009-12-05T22:51:00.001-05:00

By the year 2020, you won't need a keyboard and mouse to control your computer, say Intel Corp. researchers. Instead, users will open documents and surf the Web using nothing more than their brain waves. Scientists at Intel's research lab in Pittsburgh are working to find ways to read and harness human brain waves so they can be used to operate computers, television sets and cell phones. The brain waves would be harnessed with Intel-developed sensors implanted in people's brains.

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Demonstrating a CO2 Recycler

2009-11-29T02:17:00.001-05:00

Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have successfully demonstrated a prototype machine that uses the sun's energy to convert water and carbon dioxide into the molecular building blocks that make up transportation fuels. The "Sunshine to Petrol" system could ultimately prove a practical way to recycle CO₂ from power and industrial plants into gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel, assuming the process can become at least twice as efficient as natural photosynthesis.

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Children With Autism Use Alternative Keyboard To Communicate With Their Families And Their World

2009-11-10T10:56:00.001-05:00

Scientists at Project Blue Skies are enabling autistic children to communicate and explore the online world using the color-coded OrbitTouch keyboard, which allows users to input letters, symbols, and commands using a video-game-like interface (less distracting than a keyboard and does not require finger motion).

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Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool

2009-11-02T15:28:00.000-05:00

Windows 7 can be installed from a USB stick, a much needed functionality for netbooks that don't have CD/DVD drives. You need a 4GB or larger USB drive and the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool from Microsoft. This tool creates a bootable iso image and if your computer BIOS supports, can be booted from the USB drive.

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Muscle-Bound Computer Interface

2009-10-31T14:27:00.001-04:00

Forearm electrodes could enable new forms of hands-free computer interaction. Researchers at Microsoft, the University of Washington in Seattle, and the University of Toronto in Canada have come up with another way to interact with computers: a muscle-controlled interface that allows for hands-free, gestural interaction.

A band of electrodes attach to a person's forearm and read electrical activity from different arm muscles. These signals are then correlated to specific hand gestures, such as touching a finger and thumb together, or gripping an object tighter than normal. The researchers envision using the technology to change songs in an MP3 player while running or to play a game like Guitar Hero without the usual plastic controller.

Muscle-based computer interaction isn't new. In fact, the muscles near an amputated or missing limb are sometimes used to control mechanical prosthetics. But, while researchers have explored muscle-computer interaction for nondisabled users before, the approach has had limited practicality. Inferring gestures reliably from muscle movement is difficult, so such interfaces have often been restricted to sensing a limited range of gestures or movements. The new muscle-sensing project is "going after healthy consumers who want richer input modalities," says Desney Tan, a researcher at Microsoft. As a result, he and his colleagues had to come up with a system that was inexpensive and unobtrusive and that reliably sensed a range of gestures.

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GE Introduces Handheld Ultrasound Device

2009-10-22T01:53:00.002-04:00

At the Web 2.0 Summit on Tuesday, GE CEO Jeff Immelt showed off a forthcoming hand-held ultrasound device called Vscan, calling it "the stethoscope of the 21st century." The device, which features a clam-shell design, with a small screen on one side and a circular input pad on the other, accepts a cable terminated in an ultrasound sensor. It could easily be mistaken for a cell phone. Immelt didn't provide any pricing information. He described the device as being digitally capable, despite it's lack of WiFi connectivity.

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Free will is not an illusion after all

2009-10-12T17:01:00.003-04:00

Champions of free will, take heart. A landmark 1980s experiment that purported to show free will doesn't exist is being challenged.

In 1983, neuroscientist Benjamin Libet asked volunteers wearing scalp electrodes to flex a finger or wrist. When they did, the movements were preceded by a dip in the signals being recorded, called the "readiness potential". Libet interpreted this RP as the brain preparing for movement.

Crucially, the RP came a few tenths of a second before the volunteers said they had decided to move. Libet concluded that unconscious neural processes determine our actions before we are ever aware of making a decision.

Since then, others have quoted the experiment as evidence that free will is an illusion – a conclusion that was always controversial, particularly as there is no proof the RP represents a
decision to move.

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Cracking The Brain's Numerical Code: Researchers Can Tell What Number A Person Has Seen

2009-10-12T17:00:00.000-04:00

By carefully observing and analyzing the pattern of activity in the brain, researchers have found that they can tell what number a person has just seen. They can similarly tell how many dots a person has been presented with, according to a report published online on September 24th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication.

These findings confirm the notion that numbers are encoded in the brain via detailed and specific activity patterns and open the door to more sophisticated exploration of humans' high-level numerical abilities...

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Vote for ideas in Project 10 to the 100

2009-09-29T01:38:00.002-04:00

Project 10¹⁰⁰ is a call for ideas to change the world by helping as many people as possible. Thousands of people from more than 170 countries submitted more than 150,000 ideas. During the review process, 16 "big ideas" are distilled and each are inspired by numerous individual submissions. You can vote to realize one of them here. Voting ends on October 8, 2009.

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Predicting Drug Response from Brain Waves

2009-09-28T15:48:00.000-04:00

Brain waves measured using a simple device just one week into treatment can indicate whether a depressed patient should continue taking a medication or be switched to another. The study, which was conducted at nine sites across the U.S., could significantly reduce the time it takes to effectively treat major depression.

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Luxury Bed Maker Hästens Introduces Mindspa iPhone Application

2009-09-28T15:46:00.003-04:00

Hästens, the luxury bed maker from Sweden, and NeuroTech, Inc., announced the introduction of the new MindSpa application for the iPhone™ and iPod Touch™, the most recent technological extension of the company’s expertise in the field of sleep and relaxation. The MindSpa application takes the unique capabilities of the iPhone™ and iPod Touch™ to a new level by simultaneously providing auditory and visual neural brainwave entrainment with biofeedback. This is the first iPhone™ application to combine three scientifically proven modalities to provide deep relaxation leading to a calmer mind and better sleep.

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Memories Exist Even When Forgotten

2009-09-22T18:46:00.001-04:00

New research by UC Irvine neuroscientists suggests the memory exists – you simply can't retrieve it. scientists discovered that a person's brain activity while remembering an event is very similar to when it was first experienced, even if specifics can't be recalled.

"If the details are still there, hopefully we can find a way to access them," said Jeff Johnson, postdoctoral researcher at UCI's Center for the Neurobiology of Learning & Memory and lead author of the study, appearing Sept. 10 in the journal Neuron.

[ more ]

Magnetic levitation applied to a mammal

2009-09-16T15:18:00.005-04:00

With the aid of a strong magnetic field, mice have been made to levitate for hours at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. The floating rodents could provide a valuable insight into how astronauts are affected by extended spells in zero gravity.

The effects on the health of an animal spending hours or days in such an intense magnetic field are unknown, though rats subjected to a field of 9.4 teslas – just over half as strong as the one used on the mice – suffered no obvious ill effects.

This system is too small to be used on people, but could you build something similar to levitate humans one day? "Theoretically I think you could," says inventor, "but the cost would be prohibitive."

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'Gene cure' for colour blindness

2009-09-16T15:11:00.001-04:00

Scientists say they are a step closer to curing colour blindness using gene therapy. A US team were able to restore full colour vision to adult monkeys born without the ability to distinguish between the colours red and green. Nature journal describes the technique used by the researchers at the University of Washington. Although more studies are needed, the same treatment may work for humans who are colour blind, experts believe.

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Humans Glow in Visible Light

2009-08-14T16:25:00.001-04:00

The human body, especially the face, emits "ultraweak photons" in visible light that varies during the day and is 1,000 times less intense than the levels to which our naked eyes are sensitive, Tohoku Institute of Technology researchers have found.

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TEDMED

2009-08-09T23:35:00.000-04:00

This year TEDMED conference will be in on 27-30 October 2009 in San Diego, CA. TEDMED celebrates conversations that demonstrate the intersection and connections between all things medical and healthcare related: from personal health to public health, devices to design and Hollywood to the hospital. Together, this encompasses more than twenty percent of our GNP in America while touching everyone's life around the globe.

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Optogenetics - a new technology that combines genetic engineering, lasers, neurology and surgery

2009-06-26T18:10:00.004-04:00

The best current technology for hard-to-treat disorders can get a difficult direct neural treatment called Deep Brain Stimulation, or DBS. An electrode is inserted down to the area associated with the disorder being treated and left in place. After the surgery has healed, the implant pulses current at a frequency that either activates or quiets the area responsible for the condition. Affecting cells further from the electrode means passing more current through nearby cells. DBS is by far the most precise clinical procedure for controlling areas of the brain, but it’s still disappointingly non-specific.

A new technique called optogenetics combines genetic engineering, lasers, neurology and surgery to create a direct control mechanism.

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Problems are solved by sleeping

2009-06-20T14:49:00.000-04:00

Volunteers who entered REM during sleep improved their creative problem solving ability by almost 40%, University of California San Diego researchers showed.

The researchers believe REM sleep allows the brain to form new nerve connections without the interference of other thought pathways that occur when we are awake or in non-dream-state sleep.

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Wireless Power Harvesting for Cell Phones

2009-06-19T17:52:00.000-04:00

A cell phone that never needs recharging might sound too good to be true, but Nokia says it's developing technology that could draw enough power from ambient radio waves to keep a cell-phone handset topped up.

The Nokia device will work on the same principles as a crystal radio set or radio frequency identification (RFID) tag: by converting electromagnetic waves into an electrical signal. This requires two passive circuits. "Even if you are only getting microwatts, you can still harvest energy, provided your circuit is not using more power than it's receiving," says Markku Rouvala a researcher from the Nokia Research Centre, in Cambridge, U.K.

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Ultrasound might provide a new, noninvasive way to control brain activity

2009-06-04T03:10:00.000-04:00

Ultrasound waves, currently used in medicine for prenatal scans and other diagnostic purposes, could one day be used as a noninvasive way to control brain activity. Over the past two years, scientists have begun experimenting with low-frequency, low-intensity ultrasound that can penetrate the skull and activate or silence brain cells. Researchers hope that the technology could provide an alternative to more-invasive techniques, such as deep-brain stimulation (DBS) and vagus nerve stimulation, which are used to treat a growing number of neurological disorders.

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IBM's Watson takes on Jeopardy

2009-05-27T23:09:00.002-04:00

IBM has unveiled the details of its plans to build a computing system that can understand complex questions and answer with enough precision and speed to compete on a favorite quiz show, Jeopardy!. Onstage, completely isolated from other computers, the Internet, or human help, the Watson computer will receive the clue electronically, precisely when the human players see it. Competing in this way on Jeopardy! makes a great avenue for comparison between humans and machines. Competing at Jeopardy! is just the first step for DeepQA.

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Will designer brains divide humanity?

2009-05-16T18:39:00.001-04:00

We are on the brink of technological breakthroughs that could augment our mental powers beyond recognition. It will soon be possible to boost human brainpower with electronic "plug-ins" or even by genetic enhancement. What will this mean for the future of humanity?

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Ultra-Efficient Organic LEDs

2009-05-16T18:33:00.003-04:00

An organic light-emitting diode (OLED) developed in Germany has the potential to produce the same quality of white light as incandescent bulbs but with power efficiencies considerably better than even fluorescent lighting.

The prototype OLED could emerge as an ultra-efficient light source for displays and general lighting, says Sebastian Reineke, who led the research at the Institute for Applied Photophysics, in Dresden, Germany. The long-term goal is to fabricate the device using conventional low-cost roll-to-roll printing.

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