How a Vision Prosthetic Could Bypass the Visual System

Electrical stimulation of the visual cortex may one day give image perception to blind people. Work presented at the Society for Neuroscience 2012 meeting in New Orleans suggested a way to create a completely new kind of visual prosthetic—one that restores vision by directly activating the brain.

In a poster session, researchers presented results showing how electrical stimulation of the visual cortex can evoke the sensation of simple flashes of light—including spatial information about those flashes. 

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Brain Implant Detects, Responds to Epilepsy

Next year, medical researchers will test in patients a one-of-a-kind brain implant that can sense electrical activity in the brain while simultaneously emitting electric pulses, says device developer Medtronic.

Deep-brain stimulators are mainly used to regulate the movement problems associated with Parkinson's and other diseases, but they are also used in Europe and Canada to treat epilepsy and are being used experimentally to treat severe depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder. But doctors must use trial and error to determine the best parameters for the electrical stimulation programmed into each patient's chip.

The smarter brain stimulator is an improved version of Medtronic's existing deep-brain stimulator device, which has already been implanted in more than 80,000 people around the world. Medtronic has added an extra chip so that it can detect electrical activity and respond automatically to changes in the brain. 

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An Operating System for the Cyber War Era

Kaspersky thinks it can protect the control systems for power plants and other critical infrastructure. Eugene Kaspersky, founder of the Russian company Kaspersky, which has led discovery and analysis of state-backed malware such as Stuxnet, wrote in a blog post today that the project was needed to protect “defenseless” industrial control software.

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A wireless low-power, high-quality EEG headset

Imec, Holst Centre and Panasonic have developed a new prototype of a wireless EEG (electroencephalogram) headset designed to be a reliable, high-quality and wearable EEG monitoring system.

The system combines ease-of-use with ultra-low power electronics. Continuous impedance monitoring and the use of active electrodes increases the quality of EEG signal recording compared to former versions of the system.

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Brain scans may help personalize treatments

A new study indicates that brain scans of patients with social anxiety disorder can help predict whether they will benefit from cognitive behavioral therapy.

Social anxiety is usually treated with either cognitive behavioral therapy or medications. However, it is currently impossible to predict which treatment will work best for a particular patient. The team of researchers from MIT, Boston University (BU) and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) found that the effectiveness of therapy could be predicted by measuring patients’ brain activity as they looked at photos of faces, before the therapy sessions began.

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Brain scans detect early signs of autism

Abnormal brain development in high-risk infants who develop autism may be detected as early as age 6 months — before the appearance of autism symptoms.

Autism is typically diagnosed around the age of 2 or 3. Research suggests that the symptoms of autism — problems with communication, social interaction and behavior — can improve with early intervention.

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MRI scanners affect concentration and visuospatial awareness

Standard head movements made while exposed to one of the three electromagnetic fields produced by a heavy duty MRI scanner seem to temporarily lower concentration and visuospatial awareness, shows an experimental study published online in Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

The effects were particularly noticeable in tasks requiring high levels of working memory, which may have implications for surgeons and other healthcare staff working within the vicinity of an MRI scanner, the research indicates.

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Software Detects Motion that the Human Eye Can't See

A new set of software algorithms can amplify aspects of a video and reveal what is normally undetectable to human eyesight, making it possible to, for example, measure someone's pulse by shooting a video of him and capturing the way blood is flowing across his face.

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Human Stem Cells Found to Restore Memory

StemCells Inc. announced that its human stem cells restored memory in rodents bred to have an Alzheimer's-like condition—the first evidence that human neural stem cells can improve memory. The company hopes a clinical trial of its proprietary stem cells in rodents will lead to a clinical trial with Alzheimer's patients.


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Diagnosing Parkinson's in a phone call with a computer

Parkinson's affects some 6 million people worldwide. Although surgery and drugs can hold back its progression, there is no cure. Diagnosing it and tracking its course usually relies on an assessment of someone's symptoms using the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale, which involves tests of motor skills, for example. The process is time-consuming, expensive and requires people to attend a clinic for the tests to be carried out. It is partly because of this that it is thought that around a fifth of cases of Parkinson's are never diagnosed. A speech-processing algorithm could use the sound of your voice to diagnose a range of diseases, and spell the end of invasive physical exams.

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