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Tero Toivanen

Neurons lose information at one bit per second | KurzweilAI - 0 views

www.kurzweilai.net/ormation-at-one-bit-per-second

neuron neurons bit information cortex neuropsychology Göttingen neurophysics

shared by Tero Toivanen on 25 Jan 11 - No Cached
  • Tero Toivanen on 25 Jan 11
     
    Approximately one bit of information disappears per active neuron per second.
David McGavock

How Did Consciousness Evolve? - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...485558

research Consciousness Evolution

shared by David McGavock on 12 Jun 16 - No Cached
  • consciousness, is rarely studied in the context of evolution.
  • What is the adaptive value of consciousness? When did it evolve and what animals have it?
  • Attention Schema Theory (AST),
  • ...20 more annotations...
  • suggests that consciousness arises as a solution to one of the most fundamental problems facing any nervous system: Too much information constantly flows in to be fully processed. The brain evolved increasingly sophisticated mechanisms for deeply processing a few select signals at the expense of others,
  • The next evolutionary advance was a centralized controller for attention that could coordinate among all senses. In many animals, that central controller is a brain area called the tectum
  • It coordinates something called overt attention
  • The tectum is a beautiful piece of engineering. To control the head and the eyes efficiently, it constructs something called an internal model, a feature well known to engineers. An internal model is a simulation that keeps track of whatever is being controlled and allows for predictions and planning.
  • With the evolution of reptiles around 350 to 300 million years ago, a new brain structure began to emerge – the wulst
  • our version is usually called the cerebral cortex and has expanded enormously
  • The cortex is like an upgraded tectum
  • The most important difference between the cortex and the tectum may be the kind of attention they control
  • tectum is the master of overt attention—pointing the sensory apparatus toward anything important
  • cortex ups the ante with something called covert attention
  • Your cortex can shift covert attention from the text in front of you to a nearby person, to the sounds in your backyard, to a thought or a memory. Covert attention is the virtual movement of deep processing from one item to another.
  • the cortex must model something much more abstract.
  • it does so by constructing an attention schema
  • a constantly updated set of information that describes what covert attention is doing moment-by-moment and what its consequences are
  • The attention schema is therefore strategically vague. It depicts covert attention in a physically incoherent way, as a non-physical essence. And this, according to the theory, is the origin of consciousness. We say we have consciousness because deep in the brain, something quite primitive is computing that semi-magical self-description.
  • In the AST, the attention schema first evolved as a model of one’s own covert attention. But once the basic mechanism was in place, according to the theory, it was further adapted to model the attentional states of others, to allow for social prediction
  • theory of mind, the ability to understand the possible contents of someone else’s mind.
  • Language is perhaps the most recent big leap in the evolution of consciousness. Nobody knows when human language first evolved. Certainly we had it by 70 thousand years ago when people began to disperse around the world, since all dispersed groups have a sophisticated language.
  • Maybe partly because of language and culture, humans have a hair-trigger tendency to attribute consciousness to everything around us.
  • Justin Barrett called it the Hyperactive Agency Detection Device, or HADD
  • David McGavock on 12 Jun 16
     
    The Attention Schema Theory (AST), developed over the past five years, may be able to answer those questions. The theory suggests that consciousness arises as a solution to one of the most fundamental problems facing any nervous system: Too much information constantly flows in to be fully processed. The brain evolved increasingly sophisticated mechanisms for deeply processing a few select signals at the expense of others, and in the AST, consciousness is the ultimate result of that evolutionary sequence. If the theory is right-and that has yet to be determined-then consciousness evolved gradually over the past half billion years and is present in a range of vertebrate species.
Tero Toivanen

Brain Foundation - Healthy Brain - 0 views

www.brainaustralia.org.au/healthy_brain

brain healthy program Brain Foundation healthy brain excercise nourish psyical activity safety stress depression relax sleep regular checks smoking drugs

shared by Tero Toivanen on 22 Jun 09 - Cached
  • Tero Toivanen on 22 Jun 09
     
    The Healthy Brain Program, an initiative of the Brain Foundation, aims to assist Australians to keep their brains healthy into old age, through the provision of community education and research. The program aims to address issues such as: People are living longer, and the prevalence of degenerative brain disorders is increasing. There is little information available about how to keep the brain healthy compared to the wealth of information about a healthy body and heart. There is a need for a coordinated approach to education on key indicators and risk reduction strategies.
Tero Toivanen

Map of Synapse May Help Understand Basis of Many Diseases - NYTimes.com - 3 views

www.nytimes.com/...21brain.html

synapse map brain research neuroscience neurons science

shared by Tero Toivanen on 22 Dec 10 - No Cached
  • The research team, led by Seth Grant of the Sanger Institute near Cambridge, England, compiled the first exact inventory of all the protein components of the synaptic information-processing machinery. No fewer than 1,461 proteins are involved in this biological machinery, they report in the current issue of Nature Neuroscience.
  • Each neuron in the human brain makes an average 1,000 or so connections with other neurons. There are 100 billion neurons, so the brain probably contains 100 trillion synapses, its most critical working part.
  • The 1,461 genes that specify these synaptic proteins constitute more than 7 percent of the human genome’s 20,000 protein-coding genes, an indication of the synapse’s complexity and importance.
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  • Dr. Grant believes that the proteins are probably linked together to form several biological machines that process the information and change the physical properties of the neuron as a way of laying down a memory.
  • The new catalog of synaptic proteins “should open a major new window in mental disease,” said Jeffrey Noebels, an expert on the genetics of epilepsy at the Baylor College of Medicine. “We can go in there and systematically look for disease pathways and therefore druggable targets.”
  • Tero Toivanen on 22 Dec 10
     
    The research team, led by Seth Grant of the Sanger Institute near Cambridge, England, compiled the first exact inventory of all the protein components of the synaptic information-processing machinery. No fewer than 1,461 proteins are involved in this biological machinery
  • Ruth Howard on 26 Dec 10
     
    Seeing mental health as a druggable target is psychotic...
Tero Toivanen

AK's Rambling Thoughts: Nerve Cells and Glial Cells: Redefining the Foundation of Intel... - 0 views

artksthoughts.blogspot.com/...nd-glial-cells-redefining.html

brain Glial Cells neuron action potential axon synapse network microglia macroglia astrocytes oligodendrocytes ependymal cells radial glia

shared by Tero Toivanen on 25 Jun 09 - Cached
  • Glia are generally divided into two broad classes, microglia and macroglia. Microglia are part of the immune system, specialized macrophages, and probably don't participate in information handling. Macroglia are present in both the peripheral and central nervous systems, in different types.
  • Traditionally, there were four types of glia in the CNS: astrocytes, oligodendrocytes, ependymal cells, and radial glia. Of these, the one type that's most important to the developing revolution in our ideas are those cells called astrocytes.2 It turns out that there are at least two types of cell (at least) subsumed under this name.24, 25, 31, 32 One, which retains the name of astrocyte, takes up neurotransmitters released by neurons (and glial cells), aids in osmoregulation,10 controls circulation in the brain,1, 31 and generally appears to provide support for the neurons and other types of glia.
  • Although both NG2-glia and astrocytes extend processes to nodes of Ranvier in white matter ([refs]) and synapses in grey matter, their geometric relationship to these neuronal elements is different. Thus, although astrocytes and NG2-glia bear a superficial resemblance, they are distinguished by their different process arborizations. This will reflect fundamental differences in the way these two glial cell populations interact with other elements in the neural network.
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  • Both types of glia are closely integrated with the nervous system, receiving information from action potentials via synapses22 (which, only a few years ago were thought to be limited to neurons), and returning control of neuron activity through release of neurotransmitters and other modulators. Both, then, demonstrate the potential for considerable intelligent activity, contributing to the overall intelligence of the brain.
  • Astrocytes probably (IMO) are limited, or mostly so, to maintaining the supplies of energy and necessary metabolites. They receive action potentials,3, 6 which allows them to closely and quickly monitor general activity and increase circulation in response, even before the neurons and NG2-glia have reduced their supply of ATP.21 They appear to be linked in a network among themselves,2, 5 allowing them to communicate their needs without interfering with the higher-level calculations of the brain.
  • NG2-glia appear to have several functions, but one of the most exciting things about them is that they seem to be able to fire action potentials.33 Their cell membranes, like those of the dendrites of neurons, have all the necessary channels and receptors to perform real-time electrical calculations in the same way as neural dendrites. They have also demonstrated the ability to learn through long term potentiation.
  • Dividing NG2-glia also retain the ability to fire action potentials, as well as receiving synaptic inputs from neurons.23 Presumably, they continue to perform their full function, including retaining any elements of long term potentiation or depression contained in their synapses.
  • Oligodendrocytes are responsible for the insulation of the axons, wrapping around approximately 1 mm of each of up to 50 axons within their reach, and forming the myelin sheath.
  • Although the precise type of neuron formed by maturing cells hasn't been determined, the very fact that cells of this type can change into neurons is very important. We actually don't know whether the cells that do this maturation are the same as those that perform neuron-like activities, there appear to be two separate types of NG2-glia, spiking and non-spiking.26 It may very well be that the "spiking" type have actually differentiated, while the "non-spiking" type may be doing the maturing. Of course, very few differentiated cell types remain capable of division, as even the "spiking" type do.
  • What's important about both dendrites and NG2-glia isn't so much their ability to propagate action potentials, as that their entire cell membranes are capable of "intelligent" manipulation of the voltage across it.
  • While there are many ion channels involved in controlling the voltage across the cell membrane, the only type we really need to worry about for action potentials is voltage-gated sodium channels. These are channels that sometimes allow sodium ions to pass through the cell membrane, which they will do because the concentration of sodium ions outside the cell is very much higher than inside. When and how much they open depends, among other things, on the voltage across the membrane.
  • A normal neuron will have a voltage of around -60 to -80mV (millivolts), in a direction that tends to push the sodium ions (which are positive) into the cell (the same direction as the concentration is pushing). When the voltage falls to around -55mV, the primary type of gate will open for a millisecond or so, after which it will close and rest for several milliseconds. It won't be able to open again until the voltage is somewhere between -55 and around -10mV. Meanwhile, the sodium current has caused the voltage to swing past zero to around +20mV.
  • When one part of the cell membrane is "depolarized" in this fashion, the voltage near it is also depressed. Thus, if the voltage is at zero at one point, it might be at -20mV 10 microns (μm) away, and -40mV 20μm away, and -60mV 30μm, and so on. Notice that somewhere between 20μm and 30μm, it has passed the threshold for the ion channels, which means that they are open, allowing a current that drives the voltage further down. This will produce a wave of voltage drop along the membrane, which is what the action potential is.
  • After the action potential has passed, and the gates have closed (see above), the voltage is recovered by diffusion of ions towards and away from the membrane, the opening of other gates (primarily potassium), and a set of pumps that push the ions back to their resting state. These pumps are mostly powered by the sodium gradient, except for the sodium/potassium pump that maintains it, which is powered by ATP.
  • the vast majority of calculation that goes into human intelligence takes place at the level of the network of dendrites and NG2-glia, with the whole system of axons, dendrites, and action potentials only carrying a tiny subset of the total information over long distances. This is especially important considering that the human brain has a much higher proportion of glial matter than our relatives.
  • This, in turn, suggests that our overall approach to understanding the brain has been far too axon centric, there needs to be a shift to a more membrane-centric approach to understanding how the brain creates intelligence.
  • Tero Toivanen on 25 Jun 09
     
    Our traditional idea of how the brain works is based on the neuron: it fires action potentials, which travel along the axon and, when the reach the synapses, the receiving neuron performs a calculation that results in the decision when (or whether) to fire its own action potential. Thus, the brain, from a thinking point of view, is viewed as a network of neurons each performing its own calculation. This view, which I'm going to call the axon-centric view, is simplistic in many ways, and two recent papers add to it, pointing up the ways in which the glial cells of the brain participate in ongoing calculation as well as performing their more traditional support functions.
Tero Toivanen

Adult Learning - Neuroscience - How to Train the Aging Brain - NYTimes.com - 1 views

www.nytimes.com/...03adult-t.html

neuroscience brain aging adult learning tots research training

shared by Tero Toivanen on 02 Jan 10 - Cached
  • One explanation for how this occurs comes from Deborah M. Burke, a professor of psychology at Pomona College in California. Dr. Burke has done research on “tots,” those tip-of-the-tongue times when you know something but can’t quite call it to mind. Dr. Burke’s research shows that such incidents increase in part because neural connections, which receive, process and transmit information, can weaken with disuse or age.
  • But she also finds that if you are primed with sounds that are close to those you’re trying to remember — say someone talks about cherry pits as you try to recall Brad Pitt’s name — suddenly the lost name will pop into mind. The similarity in sounds can jump-start a limp brain connection. (It also sometimes works to silently run through the alphabet until landing on the first letter of the wayward word.)
  • Recently, researchers have found even more positive news. The brain, as it traverses middle age, gets better at recognizing the central idea, the big picture. If kept in good shape, the brain can continue to build pathways that help its owner recognize patterns and, as a consequence, see significance and even solutions much faster than a young person can.
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  • The trick is finding ways to keep brain connections in good condition and to grow more of them.
  • Educators say that, for adults, one way to nudge neurons in the right direction is to challenge the very assumptions they have worked so hard to accumulate while young. With a brain already full of well-connected pathways, adult learners should “jiggle their synapses a bit” by confronting thoughts that are contrary to their own, says Dr. Taylor, who is 66.
  • Teaching new facts should not be the focus of adult education, she says. Instead, continued brain development and a richer form of learning may require that you “bump up against people and ideas” that are different. In a history class, that might mean reading multiple viewpoints, and then prying open brain networks by reflecting on how what was learned has changed your view of the world.
  • Such stretching is exactly what scientists say best keeps a brain in tune: get out of the comfort zone to push and nourish your brain. Do anything from learning a foreign language to taking a different route to work.
  • “As adults we have these well-trodden paths in our synapses,” Dr. Taylor says. “We have to crack the cognitive egg and scramble it up. And if you learn something this way, when you think of it again you’ll have an overlay of complexity you didn’t have before — and help your brain keep developing as well.”
  • Tero Toivanen on 02 Jan 10
     
    Dr. Burke has done research on "tots," those tip-of-the-tongue times when you know something but can't quite call it to mind. Dr. Burke's research shows that such incidents increase in part because neural connections, which receive, process and transmit information, can weaken with disuse or age.
Tero Toivanen

Sign language study shows multiple brain regions wired for language - 1 views

www.eurekalert.org/...uor-sls042910.php

sign language study language brain University of Rochester language capabilities

shared by Tero Toivanen on 30 Apr 10 - Cached
  • A new study from the University of Rochester finds that there is no single advanced area of the human brain that gives it language capabilities above and beyond those of any other animal species.
  • Instead, humans rely on several regions of the brain, each designed to accomplish different primitive tasks, in order to make sense of a sentence.
  • "We're using and adapting the machinery we already have in our brains," said study coauthor Aaron Newman. "Obviously we're doing something different [from other animals], because we're able to learn language unlike any other species. But it's not because some little black box evolved specially in our brain that does only language, and nothing else."
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  • The team of brain and cognitive scientists
  • published their findings in the latest edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences.
  • The study found that there are, in fact, distinct regions of the brain that are used to process the two types of sentences: those in which word order determined the relationships between the sentence elements, and those in which inflection was providing the information.
  • In fact, Newman said, in trying to understand different types of grammar, humans draw on regions of the brain that are designed to accomplish primitive tasks that relate to the type of sentence they are trying to interpret. For instance, a word order sentence draws on parts of the frontal cortex that give humans the ability to put information into sequences, while an inflectional sentence draws on parts of the temporal lobe that specialize in dividing information into its constituent parts, the study demonstrated.
  • Tero Toivanen on 30 Apr 10
     
    A new study from the University of Rochester finds that there is no single advanced area of the human brain that gives it language capabilities above and beyond those of any other animal species.
Tero Toivanen

How the Brain Forms Categories | Neuroscience News - 0 views

neurosciencenews.com/rms-categories-neural-networks

brain research neuroscience neurons learning category categories

shared by Tero Toivanen on 21 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • Tero Toivanen on 21 Oct 12
     
    "...amazing skill of our brain to turn a wealth of sensory information into a number of defined categories and objects"
Tero Toivanen

How to Learn in Your Sleep: Scientific American - 3 views

www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm

sleep learn learning research

shared by Tero Toivanen on 27 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • Tero Toivanen on 27 Aug 12
     
    Research published today in Nature Neuroscience shows that we can learn entirely new information while we snooze.
Tero Toivanen

Creativity and the Aging Brain | Psychology Today Blogs - 0 views

blogs.psychologytoday.com/...creativity-and-the-aging-brain

creativity aging brain

shared by Tero Toivanen on 23 May 09 - Cached
  • So instead of promoting retirement at age 65, perhaps we as a society should be promoting transition at age 65: transition into a creative field where our growing resource of individuals with aging brains can preserve their wisdom in culturally-valued works of art, music, or writing.
  • Numerous studies suggest that highly creative individuals also employ a broadened rather than focused state of attention. This state of widened attention allows the individual to have disparate bits of information in mind at the same time. Combining remote bits of information is the hallmark of the creative idea.
  • Other studies show that certain areas of the prefrontal cortex involved in self-conscious awareness and emotions are thinner in the aging brain. This may correlate with the diminished need to please and impress others, which is a notable characteristic of both aging individuals and creative luminaries.
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  • Finally, intelligence studies indicate that older individuals have access to an increasing store of knowledge gained over a lifetime of learning and experience. Combining bits of knowledge into novel and original ideas is what the creative brain is all about.
  • Tero Toivanen on 23 May 09
     
    The aging brain resembles the creative brain in several ways. For instance, the aging brain is more distractible and somewhat more disinhibited than the younger brain (so is the creative brain). Aging brains score better on tests of crystallized IQ (and creative brains use crystallized knowledge to make novel and original associations).
Tero Toivanen

How The Memory Works In Learning - 4 views

www.teachthought.com/...w-the-memory-works-in-learning

learning teaching memory brain research neuroscience neurons

shared by Tero Toivanen on 02 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • Tero Toivanen on 02 Jan 13
     
    "This introduction to the basics of the neuroscience of learning includes information that should be included in all teacher education programs. It is intentionally brief such that it can be taught in a single day of instruction."
  • David McGavock on 04 Jan 13
     
    Very nice - simple summary for teachers.
David McGavock

Scientific Understanding of Consciousness - 0 views

willcov.com/bio-consciousness

understanding consciousness experts writers summary

shared by David McGavock on 02 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • During the past 20 years or so, biological sciences have advanced to the point that scientists have begun researching biological mechanisms of brain function and suggesting some reasonably well-founded hypotheses for consciousness. Leading the way in these pioneering efforts, in my judgment, have been:   Gerald Edelman with his hypothesis of the Dynamic Core, Antonio Damasio with his concepts of  Protoself, Core Self, Autobiographical Self, Core Consciousness and Extended Consciousness, Joseph LeDoux and his emphasis on the intricacies of synapses and the emotional brain,
  • Rudolfo Llinás and his researches into ~40 Hz oscillations and synchronization, György Buzsáki with his discussion and exploration of neural mechanisms related to oscillation and synchronization in the neocortex and hippocampus for perception and memory, Joaquín Fuster, the world’s preeminent expert on the frontal lobes, and his concept of the "perception-action cycle," Susan Greenfield's notion of "neuronal gestalts" as a way of conceptualizing a highly variable aggregation of neurons that is temporarily recruited around a triggering epicenter. I use the neuronal gestalts idea in my way of visualizing the functionality of the dynamic core of the thalamocortical system, Eric Kandel who has explored short-term and long-term memory,
  • The late Francis Crick with his collaborator Christof Koch who have pursued the neural correlate of consciousness (NCC), Michael Gazzaniga with the concept of the left hemisphere ‘interpreter’ unifying consciousness experience, Edmund Rolls and Gustavo Deco with their mathematical models of brain function using information theory approaches for biologically plausible neurodynamical modeling of cognitive phenomena corroborated by brain imaging studies, David LaBerge with his discussion of the thalamocortical circuit and attention, Alan Baddeley who continues to refine his model for working memory, Philosopher John Searle who endorses the idea that consciousness is an emergent property of neural networks.
  • David McGavock on 02 Mar 14
     
    "My objective in this website has been to bring together salient features of these assorted interpretations by science experts into a synthesis of my own understanding of consciousness. I consider these statements and interpretations to be a framework on which to build a fuller understanding as further data, concepts and insights develop from ongoing research."
Tero Toivanen

Visual training to retain driving competence - and your independence! | On the Brain by... - 1 views

merzenich.positscience.com/?p=250

brain visual training automobile drivers DriveSharp merzenich

shared by Tero Toivanen on 19 Jul 09 - Cached
  • Today, Posit Science announced the release of a new computer-based visual training tool, DriveSharp, specifically designed to improve the performance abilities of adult automobile drivers to a degree that can be expected to very substantially impact their driving safety.
  • Again, with a few hours of intensive training, a youthful MOT performance level can be achieved for most individuals. The result: A still FURTHER increase of driving safety.
  • In our fast-moving world, losing control of one’s peripheral vision is a main cause of driving accidents.
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  • Ball and Roenker demonstrated that these losses are substantially reversible, through appropriate, intensive training, in almost all older drivers. UFOVs can be re-expanded to relatively youthful ability levels through only a few hours of exercise. The result: About 50% fewer driving accidents in the over-65 population.
  • Moreover, once your UFOV is opened up again, you use it!
  • You can use DriveSharp repeatedly, over the rest of your days, to keep yourself in fine driving fettle!
  • The second training program that is included in DriveSharp is designed to improve your ability to keep track of more than one thing happening at the same time. This fundamental visual skill — called “multiple object tracking” (MOT) — also dramatically declines as you get older.
  • As you get older, you progressively lose the ability to accurately detect and respond to visual events in your far visual periphery.
  • If you’ve reached your 50th birthday, DriveSharp training is especially important for upgrading and sustaining your driving competence. It’s all about maintaining your performance abilities in driving as in all other ways at the highest possible level, throughout the second half of life.
  • few other benefits demonstrated by published studies originating with the Ball/Roenker team (including University of South Florida scientist Sherri Willis and a University of Iowa scientist, Fred Wolinsky).
  • 1) You’re healthier after DriveSharp training! Five years after training, Physical indices of Quality of Life are more than 30% higher — maybe because you get out more.
  • Trainees are much more likely to have retained your driver’s license — and to have sustained their personal independence.
  • After DriveSharp, you are a more confident driver, as expressed by gains in the number of times you drive each week, by an increase in average driving distances, and by your driving more often at night, or in the rain or snow.
  • Try DriveSharp now: If you are a member of one of the participating AAA clubs, please visit your AAA club’s website for more information and a special offer on DriveSharp. If not, please visit www.DriveSharp.com or call (866)599-6463 to learn more.
  • Tero Toivanen on 19 Jul 09
     
    Today, Posit Science announced the release of a new computer-based visual training tool, DriveSharp, specifically designed to improve the performance abilities of adult automobile drivers to a degree that can be expected to very substantially impact their driving safety.
Tero Toivanen

Naps, Learning and REM : The Frontal Cortex - 0 views

scienceblogs.com/...naps_learning_and_rem.php

brain learning REM productivity memory

shared by Tero Toivanen on 03 Jul 09 - Cached
  • Taking a nap without REM sleep also led to slightly better results. But a nap that included REM sleep resulted in nearly a 40 percent improvement over the pre-nap performance.
  • The study, published June 8 in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that those who had REM sleep took longer naps than those who napped without REM, but there was no correlation between total sleep time and improved performance. Only REM sleep helped.
  • Numerous studies have now demonstrated that REM sleep is an essential part of the learning process. Before you can know something, you have to dream about it.
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  • The breakthrough came in 1972, when psychologist Jonathan Winson came up with a simple theory: The rabbit brain exhibited the same pattern of activity when it was scared and when it was dreaming because it was dreaming about being scared. The theta rhythm of sleep was just the sound of the mind processing information, sorting through the day's experiences and looking for any new knowledge that might be important for future survival. They were learning while dreaming, solving problems in their sleep.
  • Wilson began his experiment by training rats to run through mazes. While a rat was running through one of these labyrinths, Wilson measured clusters of neurons in the hippocampus with multiple electrodes surgically implanted in its brain. As he'd hypothesized, Wilson found that each maze produced its own pattern of neural firing. To figure out how dreams relate to experience, Wilson recorded input from these same electrodes while the rats were sleeping. The results were astonishing. Of the 45 rat dreams recorded by Wilson, 20 contained an exact replica of the maze they had run earlier that day. The REM sleep was recapitulating experience, allowing the animals to consolidate memory and learn new things. Wilson's lab has since extended these results, demonstrating that "temporally structured replay" occurs in both the hippocampus and visual cortex.
  • Tero Toivanen on 03 Jul 09
     
    Taking a nap without REM sleep also led to slightly better results. But a nap that included REM sleep resulted in nearly a 40 percent improvement over the pre-nap performance
Tero Toivanen

The five ages of the brain: Adolescence - life - 04 April 2009 - New Scientist - 0 views

www.newscientist.com/...-of-the-brain-adolescence.html

Adolescence brain scanning grey-matter neural connections prefrontal cortex white matter

shared by Tero Toivanen on 21 Jun 09 - Cached
  • Jay Giedd at the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland, and his colleagues have followed the progress of nearly 400 children, scanning many of them every two years as they grew up. They found that adolescence brings waves of grey-matter pruning, with teens losing about 1 per cent of their grey matter every year until their early 20s (Nature Neuroscience, vol 2, p 861).
  • This cerebral pruning trims unused neural connections that were overproduced in the childhood growth spurt, starting with the more basic sensory and motor areas.
  • Among the last to mature is the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex at the very front of the frontal lobe. This area is involved in control of impulses, judgement and decision-making, which might explain some of the less-than-stellar decisions made by your average teen. This area also acts to control and process emotional information sent from the amygdala - the fight or flight centre of gut reactions - which may account for the mercurial tempers of adolescents.
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  • These changes have both benefits and pitfalls. At this stage of life the brain is still childishly flexible, so we are still sponges for learning. On the other hand, the lack of impulse control may lead to risky behaviours such as drug and alcohol abuse, smoking and unprotected sex.
  • As grey matter is lost, though, the brain gains white matter
  • Substance abuse is particularly concerning, as brain imaging studies suggest that the motivation and reward circuitry in teen brains makes them almost hard-wired for addiction.
  • since drug abuse and stressful events - even a broken heart - have been linked to mood disorders later in life, this is the time when both are best avoided.
  • Making the most of this time is a matter of throwing all that teen energy into learning and new experiences - whether that means hitting the books, learning to express themselves through music or art, or exploring life by travelling the world.
  • Tero Toivanen on 21 Jun 09
     
    Jay Giedd at the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland, and his colleagues have followed the progress of nearly 400 children, scanning many of them every two years as they grew up. They found that adolescence brings waves of grey-matter pruning, with teens losing about 1 per cent of their grey matter every year until their early 20s (Nature Neuroscience, vol 2, p 861).
Tero Toivanen

Tests find benefit of sleeping on job - Science, News - The Independent - 0 views

www.independent.co.uk/...f-sleeping-on-job-1700191.html

brain sleep REM problem solving

shared by Tero Toivanen on 09 Jun 09 - Cached
  • A type of dreamy sleep that occurs more frequently in the early morning is important for solving problems that cannot be easily answered during the day, a study has found.
  • The discovery could explain many anecdotal accounts of famous intellectuals who had wrestled with a problem only to find that they have solved it by the morning after a good night's sleep.
  • Scientists believe that a form of dreaming slumber called rapid-eye movement (REM) sleep, when the brain becomes relatively active and the eyes flicker from side to side under closed eyelids, plays a crucial role in subconscious problem solving.
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  • Those people who had enjoyed REM sleep improved significantly, by about 40 per cent, while the other volunteers who had not had REM sleep showed little if any improvement, according to the study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
  • In a series of tests on nearly 80 people, the researchers found that REM sleep increases the chances of someone being able to successfully solve a new problem involving creative associations – finding an underlying pattern behind complex information.
  • The researchers suggest that it is not merely sleep itself, or the simple passage of time, that is important for the solving of a new problem, but the act of being able to fall into a state of REM sleep where the brain slips into a different kind of neural activity that encourages the formation of new nerve connections.
  • Tero Toivanen on 09 Jun 09
     
    A type of dreamy sleep that occurs more frequently in the early morning is important for solving problems that cannot be easily answered during the day, a study has found.
Tero Toivanen

Eide Neurolearning Blog: Why Boys Need Alternatives with Reading and Writing - 0 views

eideneurolearningblog.blogspot.com/...alternatives-with-reading.html

neurolearning Reading and Writing brain

shared by Tero Toivanen on 23 May 09 - Cached
  • If you give girls and boys language tasks, most girls will process the information in the same way (in a specialized language area)
  • help them with word storage and retrieval
  • But for boys, sensitivity to the modality of how words are presented means that an extra steps need to be taken to match words that are picked up by listening and words that are read on the printed page. No wonder dyslexia is much more common in boys - the separate system means that the sight and sound of words are learned as distinct processes.
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  • As a result, verbal competence may be strong in one domain (oral speech for instance), but be weak in another (reading).
  • because boys require two areas and a matching of visual-auditory inputs, impairment in one system may cause the whole language coordination process to fail.
  • The visual-auditory gap may also be why some boys may need to read word-for-word outloud or to themselves (i.e. not silently read) in order to fully comprehend or remember the story.
  • Some careful consideration needs to made of instructional implications for boys given some of these new discoveries. Learning by listening and learning by reading are not synonymous; route-congruent factors(listening - oral presentation, reading - written response) may need to be considered when a learning gap or frank underachievement is seen, and an insistence on the availability of auditory-visual supports (reading along with books-on-tape, detailed handouts for lecture courses) should be a requirement of every classroom.
  • Tero Toivanen on 23 May 09
     
    Boys require two areas and a matching of visual-auditory inputs, impairment in one system may cause the whole language coordination process to fail.
Tero Toivanen

» Brain Plasticity: How learning changes your brain   « Brain Fitness Revolut... - 0 views

www.sharpbrains.com/...ow-learning-changes-your-brain

brain neuroplasticity learning

shared by Tero Toivanen on 23 May 09 - Cached
  • A surprising consequence of neuroplasticity is that the brain activity associated with a given function can move to a different location as a consequence of normal experience, brain damage or recovery.
  • The brain compensates for damage by reorganizing and forming new connections between intact neurons. In order to reconnect, the neurons need to be stimulated through activity.
  • Research has shown that in fact the brain never stops changing through learning. Plasticity IS the capacity of the brain to change with learning. Changes associated with learning occur mostly at the level of the connections between neurons. New connections can form and the internal structure of the existing synapses can change.
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  • It looks like learning a second language is possible through functional changes in the brain: the left inferior parietal cortex is larger in bilingual brains than in monolingual brains.
  • For instance, London taxi drivers have a larger hippocampus (in the posterior region) than London bus drivers (Maguire, Woollett, & Spiers, 2006)…. Why is that? It is because this region of the hippocampus is specialized in acquiring and using complex spatial information in order to navigate efficiently. Taxi drivers have to navigate around London whereas bus drivers follow a limited set of routes.
  • Did you know that when you become an expert in a specific domain, the areas in your brain that deal with this type of skill will grow?
  • Plastic changes also occur in musicians brains compared to non-musicians.
  • They found that gray matter (cortex) volume was highest in professional musicians, intermediate in amateur musicians, and lowest in non-musicians in several brain areas involved in playing music: motor regions, anterior superior parietal areas and inferior temporal areas.
  • Medical students’ brains showed learning-induced changes in regions of the parietal cortex as well as in the posterior hippocampus. These regions of the brains are known to be involved in memory retrieval and learning.
  • Tero Toivanen on 23 May 09
     
    A surprising consequence of neuroplasticity is that the brain activity associated with a given function can move to a different location as a consequence of normal experience, brain damage or recovery.
Tero Toivanen

Brain Stimulant: Brain Chip to Restore Functioning from Damage - 1 views

brainstimulant.blogspot.com/...-restore-functioning-from.html

brain Brain Chip restore damage neuromorphic engineering neurons stroke

shared by Tero Toivanen on 10 Dec 09 - Cached
  • The ReNaChip project is developing electronic biomimetic technology that could serve to replace damaged or missing brain tissue. This is basically neuromorphic engineering that seeks to mimic how neurons function. In the future this may be useful for people who have had injuries due to stroke or other illnesses.
  • The objective of this project is to develop a full biohybrid rehabilitation and substitution methodology; replacing the aged cerebellar brain circuit with a biomimetic chip bidirectionally interfaced to the inputs and outputs of the system. Information processing will interface with the cerebellum to actuate a normal, real-time functional behavioural recovery, providing a proof-of-concept test for the functional rehabilitation of more complex neuronal systems.
  • A sophisticated exocortex could potentially allow a two way communication between the external apparatus and the mind. The contraption could essentially scale up the amount of neurons in your brain by an artificial means. Most likely it would be used to improved the disabled first, with other applications being more speculative possibilities.
  • Tero Toivanen on 10 Dec 09
     
    The ReNaChip project is developing electronic biomimetic technology that could serve to replace damaged or missing brain tissue. This is basically neuromorphic engineering that seeks to mimic how neurons function. In the future this may be useful for people who have had injuries due to stroke or other illnesses.
Tero Toivanen

Does Vitamin D Improve Brain Function?: Scientific American - 0 views

www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm

vitamin D improve brain function

shared by Tero Toivanen on 03 Nov 09 - Cached
  • And although vitamin D is well known for promoting bone health and regulating vital calcium levels—hence its addition to milk—it does more than that. Scientists have now linked this fat-soluble nutrient’s hormonelike activity to a number of functions throughout the body, including the workings of the brain.
  • We know there are receptors for vitamin D throughout the central nervous system and in the hippocampus
  • We also know vitamin D activates and deactivates enzymes in the brain and the cerebrospinal fluid that are involved in neurotransmitter synthesis and nerve growth.
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  • In addition, animal and laboratory studies suggest vitamin D protects neurons and reduces inflammation.
  • The scientists found that the lower the subjects’ vitamin D levels, the more negatively impacted was their perform­ance on a battery of mental tests. Compared with people with optimum vitamin D levels, those in the lowest quartile were more than twice as likely to be cognitively impaired.
  • The data show that those people with lower vitamin D levels exhibited slower information-processing speed. This correlation was particularly strong among men older than 60 years.
  • Although we now know that low levels of vitamin D are associated with cognitive impairment, we do not know if high or optimum levels will lessen cognitive losses. It is also unclear if giving vitamin D to those who lack it will help them regain some of these high-level functions.
  • So how much is enough vitamin D? Experts say 1,000 to 2,000 IU daily—about the amount your body will synthesize from 15 to 30 minutes of sun exposure two to three times a week—is the ideal range for almost all healthy adults. Keep in mind, however, that skin color, where you live and how much skin you have exposed all affect how much vitamin D you can produce.
  • Tero Toivanen on 03 Nov 09
     
    And although vitamin D is well known for promoting bone health and regulating vital calcium levels-hence its addition to milk-it does more than that. Scientists have now linked this fat-soluble nutrient's hormonelike activity to a number of functions throughout the body, including the workings of the brain.
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