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"CTRL-Labs dedicates itself to answering the biggest questions in computing, neuroscience, and design so creators can dream. Our work to build a transformative brain-machine interface spans research and challenges at the intersection of computational neuroscience, statistics, machine learning, biophysics, hardware, and human-computer interaction."

"I am a Neuroscientist working at the Centre for Integrative Neuroscience (CIN), University of Tübingen, Germany. In My Research I use a combination of 2-photon imaging, electrophysiology and computational modelling to unravel principles of synaptic and network computations in the vertebrate early visual system. Outside my regular work I am also co-founder of a not-for-profit organisation TReND in Africa, dedicated to foster Neuroscience Education and Research on the African continent. Moreover I am contributor to Open Labware, the design and building of open source laboratory equipment based on off-the-shelf electronics and simple mechanics as made possible by 3D printing"

Three Harvard scholars trained in chemistry and physics pursue innovative approaches and tools that address problems in neuroscience.

Most people would agree that culture can have a large effect on our daily lives - influencing what we may wear, say, or find humorous. But many people may be surprised to learn that culture may even effect how our brain responds to different stimuli. Indeed, until recently, most psychology and neuroscience researchers took for granted that their findings translated across individuals in various cultures. In the past decade, however, research has begun to unravel how cultural belief systems shape our thoughts and behaviors.

Originalpublikation: Rudorf S et al., Neural Correlates of Anticipation Risk Reflect Risk Preferences, Journal of Neuroscience, 2012, DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4235-11.2012 „Diese Studie zeigt erstmals die neurobiologischen Zusammenhänge, wie individuelle Risikopräferenzen die Risikowahrnehmung bestimmen", sagt Prof. Weber. „Das hat auch Auswirkungen auf Handlungen in der Finanzwelt und im Gesundheitsbereich." Im nächsten Schritt wollen die Wissenschaftler untersuchen, welche Konsequenzen diese Resultate auf das ökonomische Verhalten etwa auf dem Aktienmark haben. „Damit ließe sich vielleicht sogar die Beratung von Anlegern mit Blick auf ihr individuelles Risikoverhalten verbessern", sagt Prof. Weber. Ein weiteres wichtiges Feld sei der Gesundheitsbereich. Raucher wissen, dass ihr Handeln sehr gefährlich ist, und rauchen trotzdem. „Wenn die Risikoeinstellung von Rauchern besser bekannt ist, können vielleicht wirksamere Anti-Raucher-Kampagnen entwickelt werden."

"Was fühlen Vögel, wenn sie dem Gesang ihrer Artgenossen lauschen? Womöglich sind ihre Emotionen nicht so viel anders als die von Menschen: Sei reichen von heller Freude bis zu düsterer Abneigung. Wenn Vögel dem Gesang ihrer Artgenossen lauschen, fühlen sie womöglich Ähnliches wie menschliche Musikhörer. Über diese Möglichkeit spekulieren Neurowissenschaftler um Sarah Earp von der Emory University im Fachmagazin Frontiers of Evolutionary Neuroscience."

Ines Wilhelm (Universität Tübingen) et al.Nature Neuroscience, doi: 10.1038/nn.3343 " Jetzt zeigt sich, dass das kindliche Gehirn während der Nachtruhe vor allem einen wichtigen Lernschritt absolviert: Den Übergang von unbewusst Aufgenommenem zu explizit verstandenem, abrufbarem Wissen. Wie deutsche Forscher herausfanden, ist der besonders tiefe Schlaf der Kinder sogar für diesen Umwandlungsschritt optimiert - sie profitieren deshalb mehr von einem Überschlafen neuer Fertigkeiten als"

cp. Olaf Blanke, http://ed.iiQii.de/gallery/Science-TheOnlyNews/OlafBlanke_inco_epfl_ch "I am interested in the neurobiology of visual perception, visual cognition, and motor control. Neurocognitive processes underlying social perception and social cognition form the second focus of my research."

"Rather, these successful men needed to also be blessed with "zeal and with capacity for hard labour." This study is a first glimpse into those essential qualities described by Galton, helping us map out the individual differences that make it slightly easier for some people to engage in hard labor. These diligent souls seem to get a bit more pleasure from the possibility of reward, but they also seem less sensitive to their inner complainer, that disruptive voice reminding them that minesweeper is more fun than editing, or that the ballgame on television is much more entertaining than their homework. At any given moment, there is a tug of war unfolding in our head, determining whether or not we're willing to put in the effort. This sentence only exists because, for a few minutes at least, I was able to win the war."

"The molecule PKR (the double-stranded RNA-activated protein kinase) was originally described as a sensor of viral infections, but its function in the brain was totally unknown," said Dr. Mauro Costa-Mattioli, assistant professor of neuroscience at BCM and senior author of the paper. Since the activity of PKR is altered in a variety of cognitive disorders, Costa-Mattioli and colleagues decided to take a closer look at its role in the mammalian brain. Super memory The authors discovered that mice lacking PKR in the brain have a kind of "super" memory. "

The relationship between power, authority, and information since the dawn of the first major information-technology boom How people react to information consumption, according to cognitive science and neuroscience findings How the new, information-abundant society is suffering consequences from poor information consumption habits

Quatschen wissenschaftlich erklärt Human beings are social animals. We spend large portions of our waking hours communicating with others, and the possibilities for conversation are seemingly endless

"Hudnall: I really do believe that repression makes you sick. I'm big believer of what is coming out in the neuroscience and therapy community. Brene Brown, who is a shame and guilt expert, said it best: "We have an epidemic of shame in this country." If you keep things inside and have no one to talk to - and this is not crystals and patchouli - you will get sick, you will be miserable, you will ruin your relationships, and you will be unhappy. I know people whose lives were ruined by silence. Especially women. The one thing that has really opened my eyes while teaching is just what we do to our women. Only my women students have said to me, "I don't know if I have anything worth saying." It smacks me in the face every day. We are really fucking up our women"

"A lawyer is trying to convince a jury that his client really is crazy. It's usually a tough argument to sell in a court of law. But what if the lawyer has a picture of his client's brain that shows there's something biologically wrong with it? Can that evidence help persuade a jury? Should it even be allowed as evidence?"

ScienceDaily (Jan. 12, 2011) - Scientists have found that the pleasurable experience of listening to music releases dopamine, a neurotransmitter in the brain important for more tangible pleasures associated with rewards such as food, drugs and sex. The new study from The Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital -- The Neuro at McGill University also reveals that even the anticipation of pleasurable music induces dopamine release [as is the case with food, drug, and sex cues]. Published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, the results suggest why music, which has no obvious survival value, is so significant across human society.

For many years, neurons were thought to be alone in executing this task, and glia were consigned to a supporting role regulating a neuron's environment, helping it to grow, and even providing physical scaffolding (glia is Greek for 'glue'). In the past couple of decades, however, this picture has been changing.

Music, an abstract stimulus, can arouse feelings of euphoria and craving, similar to tangible rewards that involve the striatal dopaminergic system. Using the neurochemical specificity of [11C]raclopride positron emission tomography scanning, combined with psychophysiological measures of autonomic nervous system activity, we found endogenous dopamine release in the striatum at peak emotional arousal during music listening. To examine the time course of dopamine release, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging with the same stimuli and listeners, and found a functional dissociation: the caudate was more involved during the anticipation and the nucleus accumbens was more involved during the experience of peak emotional responses to music. These results indicate that intense pleasure in response to music can lead to dopamine release in the striatal system. Notably, the anticipation of an abstract reward can result in dopamine release in an anatomical pathway distinct from that associated with the peak pleasure itself. Our results help to explain why music is of such high value across all human societies.

Educational researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have found that schoolchildren can independently develop strategies for solving complex mathematical tasks, with weaker students proving just as capable as their stronger classmates. Researchers in mathematics education worked with approximately 1600 8th grade high-school students in various German states. Following an introduction to the general topic by their teachers, the school children were given a workbook of geometric tasks that they had to solve on paper and using a computer over four school periods. Calculating the surface area of Gran Canaria was one of the real-world, free-form assignments the students had to tackle. The workbook material included explanations and examples of various problem-solving approaches. The teachers took a back seat during the session but were on hand to answer questions from the children, who worked in pairs. After testing the students' skills before and after the session, the researchers recorded a significant improvement in their capabilities. The students learned to apply mathematics more effectively, the researchers said. The students were also able to call on these skills in a further test three months later. "We expected students who were weaker at math to benefit more from a greater degree of guidance through the module," said professor Kristina Reiss.  "But we didn't see a significant difference between these and stronger students." The researchers also found that there were also no differences between boys and girls. "We now know that students - also those who are weaker in math - have the skills to master even very complex subject matters at their own pace," said Reiss. Topics: Cognitive Science/Neuroscience

Apply the electrodes... Externally modulating the brain's activity can boost its performance. The easiest way to manipulate the brain is through transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), which involves applying electrodes directly to the head to influence neuron activity with an electric current. Roi Cohen Kadosh's team at the University of Oxford showed last year that targeting tDCS at the brain's right parietal lobe can boost a person's arithmetic ability - the effects were still apparent six months after the tDCS session (newscientist.com/article/dn19679). More recently, Richard Chi and Allan Snyder at the University of Sydney, Australia, demonstrated that tDCS can improve a person's insight. The pair applied tDCS to volunteers' anterior frontal lobes - regions known to play a role in how we perceive the world - and found the participants were three times as likely as normal to complete a problem-solving task (newscientist.com/article/dn20080). Brain stimulation can also boost a person's learning abilities, according to Agnes Flöel's team at the University of Münster in Germany. Twenty minutes of tDCS to a part of the brain called the left perisylvian area was enough to speed up and improve language learning in a group of 19 volunteers (Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, DOI: 10.1162/jocn.2008.20098). Using the same technique to stimulate the brain's motor cortex, meanwhile, can enhance a person's ability to learn a movement-based skill (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0805413106).

Brain, bodily awareness, and the emergence of a conscious self: these entities and their relations are explored by Germanphilosopher and cognitive scientist Metzinger. Extensively working with neuroscientists he has come to the conclusion that, in fact, there is no such thing as a "self" -- that a "self" is simply the content of a model created by our brain - part of a virtual reality we create for ourselves. But if the self is not "real," he asks, why and how did it evolve? How does the brain construct the self? In a series of fascinating virtual reality experiments, Metzinger and his colleagues have attempted to create so-called "out-of-body experiences" in the lab, in order to explore these questions. As a philosopher, he offers a discussion of many of the latest results in robotics, neuroscience, dream and meditation research, and argues that the brain is much more powerful than we have ever imagined. He shows us, for example, that we now have the first machines that have developed an inner image of their own body -- and actually use this model to create intelligent behavior. In addition, studies exploring the connections between phantom limbs and the brain have shown us that even people born without arms or legs sometimes experience a sensation that they do in fact have limbs that are not there. Experiments like the "rubber-hand illusion" demonstrate how we can experience a fake hand as part of our self and even feel a sensation of touch on the phantom hand form the basis and testing ground for the idea that what we have called the "self" in the past is just the content of a transparent self-model in our brains. Now, as new ways of manipulating the conscious mind-brain appear on the scene, it will soon become possible to alter our subjective reality in an unprecedented manner. The cultural consequences of this, Metzinger claims, may be immense: we will need a new approach to ethics, and we will be forced to think about ourselves in a fundamentally new way. At