Reconstructing Visual Experiences from Brain Activity Evoked by Natural Movies

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.

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An Objective Way to Measure Pain

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.

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Word association with brain scans

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.

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The Petri Dish Gets a Makeover

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.

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Stick-On Electronic Tattoos

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.

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Social deficits associated with autism, schizophrenia induced in mice

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

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

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

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

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.

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