Yu Takagi, Shinji Nishimoto and Osaka University colleagues have published a study which demonstrates that AI can read brain scans and re-create largely realistic versions of images a person has seen. Future applications could include enabling communication of people with paralysis, recording dreams, and understanding animal perception, among others. Additional training was used on the existing text-to-image generative […]
Browsing Tag: Brain
qMRI for early detection of Parkinson’s disease
Aviv Mezer and Hebrew University colleagues used quantitative MRI to identify cellular changes in Parkinson’s disease. Their method enabled them to look at microstructures in the striatum, which is known to deteriorate during disease progression. Using a novel algorithm developed by Elior Drori, biological changes in the striatum were revealed, and associated with early stage […]
Non-invasive stimulation improves memory in study
In a recent study, Boston University professor Robert Reinhart used tACS to stimulate brain activity in 150 people aged 65-88, resulting in memory improvements for one month. Stimulating the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex improved long-term memory, while stimulating the inferior parietal lobe, with low-frequency electrical currents, boosted working memory. Participants were asked to recall 20 words […]
Neural Network assesses sleep patterns for passive Parkinson’s diagnosis
MIT’s Dina Katabi has developed a non-contact, neural network-based system to detect Parkinson’s disease while a person is sleeping. By assessing nocturnal breathing patterns, the series of algorithms detects, and tracks the progression of, the disease — every night, at home. A device in the bedroom emits radio signals, analyzes their reflections off the surrounding […]
First US patient receives Synchron endovascular BCI implant
On July 6, 2022, Mount Sinai’s Shahram Majidi threaded Synchron‘s 1.5-inch-long, wire and electrode implant into a blood vessel in the brain of a patient with ALS. The goal is for the patient, who cannot speak or move, to be able to surf the web and communicate via email and text, with his thoughts. Four […]
Joe Wang developed, closed-loop, levadopa delivery/monitoring system for Parkinson’s disease
Early Parkinson’s Disease patients benefit significantly from levodopa, to replace dopamine to restore normal motor function. As PD progresses, the brain loses more dopamine-producing cells, which causes motor complications and unpredictable responses to levodopa. Doses must be increased over time, and given at shorter intervals. Regimens are different for each person and may vary from […]
Carbon nanotube sensor precisely measures dopamine
Ruhr University professor Sebastian Kruss, with Max Planck researchers Sofia Elizarova and James Daniel, has developed a sensor that can visualize the release of dopamine from nerve cells with unprecedented resolution. The team used modified carbon nanotubes that glow brighter in the presence of the messenger substance dopamine. Eizarova said that the sensor “provides new […]
Univ. of Reading study links Alzheimer’s disease to blood brain barrier damage
The “Lipid Invasion Model” argues that lipids entering the brain due to blood brain barrier damage is the determining cause of the Alzheimer’s Disease. The presence of excess lipids in the brain cells of Alzheimer’s patients is an element of Alois Alzheimer’s 1906 research, but little has been published about this connection since. The hypothesis, […]
Prenatal MRI study suggests autism differences may begin in the womb
A small Boston Children’s Hospital study led by Assistant Professor Emi Takahashi and postdoc Alpen Ortug showed increased volume of the insular lobe as a potential strong prenatal MRI biomarker that could predict the emergence of ASD later in life. It revealed significant differences in brain structures at 25 weeks’ gestation between children who were […]
Stanford study: High dose magnetic stimulation eases severe depression
Nolan Williams, Alan Schatzberg, and Stanford colleagues have published a small, double blind study showing that high dose, noninvasive, magnetic brain stimulation alleviated depression symptoms in 80% of participants. Stanford accelerated intelligent neuromodulation therapy (SAINT) is an intensive, individualized form of transcranial magnetic stimulation. Effects were seen within days and lasted months. Side effects included […]