Hacker News with Generative AI: Neuroscience

One Head, Two Brains (2015) (theatlantic.com)
In 1939, a group of 10 people between the ages of 10 and 43, all with epilepsy, traveled to the University of Rochester Medical Center, where they would become the first people to undergo a radical new surgery.

Medical History, Epilepsy, Neuroscience

37 points by shry4ns 2 days ago | 42 comments

Clock Drawing Test (utoronto.ca)
The clock drawing test is a cognitive test that evaluates how well the brain is working.

Cognitive Tests, Health, Neuroscience

7 points by thunderbong 3 days ago | 1 comments

Pancreatic cancer: blocked nerves as a possible new treatment strategy (dkfz.de)
Pancreatic cancer is fueled by connections to the nervous system. This is reported by scientists from the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) and the Heidelberg Institute for Stem Cell Technology and Experimental Medicine (HI-STEM)* in their current publication in Nature. The team discovered that the tumor reprograms the neurons for its own benefit. In mice, blocking nerve function inhibited cancer growth and increased the sensitivity of tumor cells to certain chemotherapies and immunotherapies.

Cancer Research, Neuroscience, Treatment, Immunotherapy, Mice Studies

4 points by gmays 3 days ago | 0 comments

EEG Study of Buddhist Jhāna Meditation (2019) (frontiersin.org)
The “neural correlates of consciousness” (NCC) is a familiar topic in neuroscience, overlapping with research on the brain’s “default mode network.” Task-based studies of NCC by their nature recruit one part of the cortical network to study another, and are therefore both limited and compromised in what they can reveal about consciousness itself.

Neuroscience, Meditation, Consciousness, Brain Research

115 points by Curiositry 4 days ago | 28 comments

Alzheimer's Disease as Type 3 Diabetes (gethealthspan.com)
Over the past several decades, Alzheimer’s disease (AD) has been predominantly explained through the lens of amyloid-beta plaques and neurofibrillary tangles, yet an emerging paradigm shift increasingly recognizes metabolic dysfunction—specifically, insulin resistance—as a key driver of AD.

Alzheimer's Disease, Diabetes, Neuroscience, Health, Research

13 points by dtawfik1 6 days ago | 3 comments

Why aren't we losing our minds over the plastic in our brains? (scientificamerican.com)
Our brains are full of plastic.

Neuroscience, Health, Environment, Plastic

94 points by mikhael 6 days ago | 175 comments

Alzheimer's biomarkers now visible up to a decade ahead of symptoms (newatlas.com)
Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have devised a biomarker test that can spot small amounts of clumping tau protein in the brain and cerebrospinal fluid, which lead to Alzheimer's disease.

Alzheimer's, Medical Research, Biomarkers, Neuroscience

239 points by 01-_- 6 days ago | 61 comments

Barcoding brains (asimov.press)
Connectomics — a technique that maps physical connections between neural cells — is expensive and inefficient. E11 Bio, a non-profit research group, is designing a tool to expedite progress.

Neuroscience, Research, Biology, Technology

24 points by if-curious 7 days ago | 4 comments

Birds have developed complex brains independently from mammals (phys.org)
Two studies published in the latest issue of Science have revealed that birds, reptiles, and mammals have developed complex brain circuits independently, despite sharing a common ancestor.

Evolution, Neuroscience, Biology, Birds, Mammals

32 points by ftrobro 8 days ago | 6 comments

Head Games – a humiliating list of all the ways your brain can deceive you (futilitycloset.com)
This is beautifully well done — a humiliating list of all the ways your brain can deceive you (click to enlarge).

Psychology, Cognitive Science, Human Brain, Neuroscience, Deceptions

9 points by beardyw 8 days ago | 0 comments

How your morning coffee is changing the structure of your brain (newatlas.com)
A novel placebo-controlled study has found daily caffeine consumption can significantly reduce the volume of gray matter in the human brain.

Health, Neuroscience, Caffeine, Brain

15 points by clumsysmurf 9 days ago | 5 comments

The Hallucinatory Thoughts of the Dying Mind (nautil.us)
Delirium exposes the gap between the ideal and the reality

Death, Consciousness, Neuroscience, Psychology

25 points by dnetesn 9 days ago | 2 comments

The secret behind sharp vision: the benefits of tiny eye movements (medicalxpress.com)
Even when we think we are holding our gaze perfectly still, our eyes make tiny, involuntary movements. While these "fixational eye movements" might seem like they would blur our vision, new research reveals they actually help us see fine details more clearly.

Vision, Neuroscience, Human Biology, Research

7 points by bikenaga 9 days ago | 0 comments

Rethinking mental health: The body's impact on the brain (thetransmitter.org)
Psychiatric conditions have long been regarded as issues of “mental health,” a term that inherently ties our understanding of these disorders to the brain. But the brain does not exist in a vacuum. Growing evidence over the past 10 years highlights a link between the body and what we think of as mental health.

Mental Health, Neuroscience, Body-Mind Connection, Medicine

6 points by domofutu 10 days ago | 0 comments

A Year of Telepathy (neuralink.com)

Neuralink, Telepathy, Neuroscience, Technology, Brain-Computer Interfaces

193 points by julianh65 10 days ago | 314 comments

The hallucinatory thoughts of the dying mind (mitpress.mit.edu)
Delirium is one of the most perplexing deathbed phenomena, exposing the gap between our cultural ideals of dying words and the reality of a disoriented mind.

Death, Neuroscience, Psychology, Medicine, Cultural Studies

179 points by anarbadalov 11 days ago | 131 comments

Ketamine for Depression: How It Works (2024) [video] (yalemedicine.org)
When at least two trials of a standard anti-depression medication fail to alleviate symptoms, ketamine treatment may be an option.

Mental Health, Depression, Treatment, Medication, Neuroscience

109 points by ViktorRay 14 days ago | 107 comments

New neuroscience research shows Covid-19 leaves mark on young adult brains (psypost.org)
A new study published in Brain, Behavior, and Immunity has found that young adults who have recovered from COVID-19 show distinct patterns of brain activity during cognitive tasks, even if they perform normally on those tasks.

Neuroscience, COVID-19, Health, Research, Brain

9 points by amichail 14 days ago | 1 comments

HippoRAG: Neurobiologically Inspired Long-Term Memory for LLMs (2024) (arxiv.org)
In order to thrive in hostile and ever-changing natural environments, mammalian brains evolved to store large amounts of knowledge about the world and continually integrate new information while avoiding catastrophic forgetting.

Artificial Intelligence, Neuroscience, Memory

65 points by veryluckyxyz 15 days ago | 4 comments

Particulate matter exposure diminishes cognitive functioning (nature.com)
Recent evidence suggests short-term exposure to particulate matter (PM) air pollution can impact brain function after a delay period. It is unknown whether effects are predominantly due to the olfactory or lung-brain pathways.

Air Pollution, Health, Neuroscience, Cognitive Function, Science

18 points by lonelyasacloud 15 days ago | 2 comments

I'm a neuroscientist. Here's how gambling can change your brain (sciencefocus.com)

Neuroscience, Gambling, Brain, Psychology, Science

8 points by nabla9 19 days ago | 3 comments

Scientists find links between Alzheimer's, herpes, and head trauma (statnews.com)
At Tufts University in Medford, Mass., researchers loaded a tiny 3D model of the human brain into a plastic shell resting atop a spring-loaded platform.

Alzheimer's Disease, Neuroscience, Medical Research, Herpes Virus, Head Trauma

223 points by wglb 21 days ago | 80 comments

TopoNets: High performing vision and language models with brain-like topography (arxiv.org)
Neurons in the brain are organized such that nearby cells tend to share similar functions.

Computer Vision, Artificial Intelligence, Neuroscience

225 points by mayukhdeb 22 days ago | 68 comments

TopoNets: High-Performing Vision and Language Models with Brain-Like Topography (toponets.github.io)
The organization of neurons in the brain is highly structured: neurons performing similar functions are located near one another. This "topographic organization" is a fundamental principle of primate brains and plays an important role in shaping the brain's representations.

Artificial Intelligence, Computer Vision, Neuroscience, Machine Learning

39 points by hexhowells 22 days ago | 2 comments

Revisiting Sex and Gender in the Brain (thetransmitter.org)
To understand how to study the influence of sex and gender in the brain in not only a scientifically accurate but socially responsible manner, we need to think of “sex” as a complex, multifactorial and context-dependent variable.

Neuroscience, Gender Studies, Psychology

5 points by domofutu 24 days ago | 0 comments

Parkinsons patient "feels cured" with new adaptive deep brain stimulation device (bbc.com)
A man fitted with a pioneering, computer-controlled brain implant to tackle his Parkinson's disease says it works so well he is sometimes able to forget he has the condition.

Medical Technology, Parkinson's Disease, Neuroscience

272 points by ck2 24 days ago | 45 comments

Using AI to develop a fuller model of the human brain (magazine.ucsf.edu)
Imagine for a moment that we could create a model of the human brain so precise, so accurate, that it could mimic the brain’s intricate neural patterns in real time. Imagine a “silicon brain,” an artificial neural network so advanced that it could decode a human’s thoughts, restore speech to those who have lost it, and – perhaps one day – even generate a personalized model of the unique brain activity of any individual.

Artificial Intelligence, Neuroscience, Brain Science, Medical Research, Computer Modeling

87 points by geox 27 days ago | 36 comments

Concept cells help your brain abstract information and build memories (quantamagazine.org)
Individual cells in the brain light up for specific ideas. These concept neurons, once known as “Jennifer Aniston cells,” help us think, imagine and remember episodes from our lives.

Neuroscience, Memory, Cognitive Science, Brain, Artificial Intelligence

147 points by headalgorithm 31 days ago | 18 comments

Sleeping pills stop the brain's system for cleaning out waste (arstechnica.com)
Our bodies rely on their lymphatic system to drain excessive fluids and remove waste from tissues, feeding those back into the blood stream. It’s a complex yet efficient cleaning mechanism that works in every organ except the brain. “When cells are active, they produce waste metabolites, and this also happens in the brain.

Neuroscience, Health, Sleep, Biology

30 points by zdw 32 days ago | 20 comments

Good readers have distinct brain anatomy, research reveals (psypost.org)
The number of people who read for fun appears to be steadily dropping. Fifty percent of UK adults say they don’t read regularly (up from 42% in 2015) and almost one in four young people aged 16-24 say they’ve never been readers, according to research by The Reading Agency.

Reading, Neuroscience, Brain, Research, Behavior

14 points by isaacfrond 35 days ago | 8 comments