Hacker News with Generative AI: Neuroscience

Habitual use of GPS negatively impacts spatial memory (2020) (nature.com)
Global Positioning System (GPS) navigation devices and applications have become ubiquitous over the last decade. However, it is unclear whether using GPS affects our own internal navigation system, or spatial memory, which critically relies on the hippocampus.
We can, must, and will simulate nematode brains (asteriskmag.com)
Scientists have spent over 25 years trying — and failing — to build computer simulations of the smallest brain we know. Today, we finally have the tools to pull it off.
Glutamate Unlocks Brain Cell Channels to Enable Thinking and Learning (neurosciencenews.com)
In an effort to understand how brain cells exchange chemical messages, scientists say they have successfully used a highly specialized microscope to capture more precise details of how one of the most common signaling molecules, glutamate, opens a channel and allows a flood of charged particles to enter.
First map of human brain mitochondria is 'groundbreaking' achievement (nature.com)
Scientists have created the first map of the crucial structures called mitochondria throughout the entire brain ― a feat that could help to unravel age-related brain disorders1.
Researchers get spiking neural behavior out of a pair of transistors (arstechnica.com)
A paper published in Nature on Wednesday describes a way to get plain-old silicon transistors to behave a lot like an actual neuron. And unlike the dedicated processors made so far, it only requires two transistors to do so.
First stroke rehabilitation drug discovered in mouse model (medicalxpress.com)
A new study by UCLA Health has discovered what researchers say is the first drug to fully reproduce the effects of physical stroke rehabilitation in model mice.
Calorie-free sweeteners can disrupt the brain's appetite signals (keck.usc.edu)
A study from the Keck School of Medicine of USC found that a common sugar substitute alters brain activity related to hunger and increases appetite, especially in people with obesity.
The mysterious flow of fluid in the brain (quantamagazine.org)
Encased in the skull, perched atop the spine, the brain has a carefully managed existence. It receives only certain nutrients, filtered through the blood-brain barrier; an elaborate system of protective membranes surrounds it. That privileged space contains a mystery. For more than a century, scientists have wondered: If it’s so hard for anything to get into the brain, how does waste get out?
The Mysterious Flow of Fluid in the Brain (quantamagazine.org)
Encased in the skull, perched atop the spine, the brain has a carefully managed existence. It receives only certain nutrients, filtered through the blood-brain barrier; an elaborate system of protective membranes surrounds it. That privileged space contains a mystery. For more than a century, scientists have wondered: If it’s so hard for anything to get into the brain, how does waste get out?
The Unbearable Loudness of Chewing (asteriskmag.com)
Why do some people find certain sounds intolerable? And why has it taken so long for scientists to get even a preliminary answer?
First-of-its-kind trial enables paralysed man to stand via stem cell injection (nature.com)
A paralysed man can stand on his own after receiving an injection of neural stem cells to treat his spinal cord injury.
"Infantile amnesia" occurs despite babies showing memory activity (arstechnica.com)
For many of us, memories of our childhood have become a bit hazy, if not vanishing entirely. But nobody really remembers much before the age of 4, because nearly all humans experience what's termed "infantile amnesia," in which memories that might have formed before that age seemingly vanish as we move through adolescence. And it's not just us; the phenomenon appears to occur in a number of our fellow mammals.
Targeting Brain's Drainage Pathways Rejuvenates Memory (neurosciencenews.com)
Now, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis report they have found a way around that problem by targeting the network of vessels that drain waste from the brain. Rejuvenating those vessels, they have shown, improves memory in old mice.
Deciphering language processing in the human brain through LLM representations (research.google)
Large Language Models (LLMs) optimized for predicting subsequent utterances and adapting to tasks using contextual embeddings can process natural language at a level close to human proficiency. This study shows that neural activity in the human brain aligns linearly with the internal contextual embeddings of speech and language within large language models (LLMs) as they process everyday conversations.
Can Parrot Brains Teach Us About Human Speech? (smithsonianmag.com)
Parrots have long fascinated humans with their ability to mimic speech, but new research reveals their brains do more than just imitate—they use complex neural systems that parallel the way humans produce speech.
Sex differences in brain structure are present at birth (psypost.org)
New research published in Biology of Sex Differences has found that sex differences in brain structure are already present at birth and remain relatively stable during early postnatal development.
Sleep pressure accumulates in a voltage-gated lipid peroxidation memory (nature.com)
Voltage-gated potassium (KV) channels contain cytoplasmically exposed β-subunits1,2,3,4,5 whose aldo-keto reductase activity6,7,8 is required for the homeostatic regulation of sleep9.
Trauma treatment: Playing Tetris increased hippocampal volume in PTSD patients (nlm.nih.gov)
Recent work has provided evidence for the utility of the visuospatial video game Tetris as an early therapeutic intervention for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).1–3 Holmes and colleagues have shown that playing Tetris directly after trauma exposure can reduce subsequent intrusive memories of the traumatic event, and they have demonstrated the efficacy of this “cognitive vaccine” in both experimental1 and real-world settings.2–4
To the brain, Esperanto and Klingon appear the same as English or Mandarin (news.mit.edu)
A new study finds natural and invented languages elicit similar responses in the brain’s language-processing network.
When the Animals Went Electric (nautil.us)
What a superpower sense tells us about evolutionary creativity
The Hypercuriosity Theory of ADHD (epsig.substack.com)
Watching nature scenes can reduce pain, new study shows (exeter.ac.uk)
A new neuroimaging study has revealed that viewing nature can help ease how people experience pain, by reducing the brain activity linked to pain perception.
Dark Books (2016) (aeon.co)
Reading novels is good for you. This is the current wisdom, at least. A 2013 study by the New School for Social Research in New York City attempted to prove that reading passages by Don DeLillo and Lydia Davis had an immediate impact on participants’ ability to identify the emotions of others. Another, at Emory University in Georgia, found that reading novels had the potential to cause heightened ‘connectivity’ in the brain.
Parkinson's treatment closer as problematic protein imaged for first time (newatlas.com)
Scientists have finally pinned down a protein that’s largely responsible for Parkinson’s disease.
Directly converting skin cells to brain cells yields 1k% success (newatlas.com)
In a potentially major breakthrough for regenerative medicine, scientists at MIT have developed a way to convert skin cells directly into brain cells extremely efficiently, without needing to go through the intermediate step of converting them to stem cells first.
How far neuroscience is from understanding brains (2023) (nlm.nih.gov)
The cellular biology of brains is relatively well-understood, but neuroscientists have not yet generated a theory explaining how brains work.
What ketamine does to the human brain (theatlantic.com)
Excessive use of the drug can make anyone feel like they rule the world.
Optimal brain process requires balance between excitatory and inhibitory neurons (phys.org)
The brain's ability to process information is known to be supported by intricate connections between different neuron populations. A key objective of neuroscience research has been to delineate the processes via which these connections influence information processing.
Enhanced mind-matter interactions following rTMS induced frontal lobe inhibition (sciencedirect.com)
A major barrier to acceptance of psi is that effects are small and hard to replicate.
A unified acoustic-to-speech-to-language embedding space (nature.com)
This study introduces a unified computational framework connecting acoustic, speech and word-level linguistic structures to study the neural basis of everyday conversations in the human brain.