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Posts Tagged ‘Neurons’

Mice run through Quake, Princeton neuroscientists scan their brains for traces of evil (video)

Want to know just how prevalent technology has become in our lives? Now even lab mice get Quake-derived virtual reality playgrounds to navigate instead of their old school wooden mazes. In all honesty, this appears a significant and praiseworthy advancement, as the Princeton team have succeeded in mapping brain activity right down to the cellular level, with real-time tracking of single neurons now possible. The Orwellian-looking setup above is necessary in order to keep the mouse’s head immobile, and thus capable of being studied, while the animal moves around and its brain performs motion-related tasks. Go past the break to see a schematic of the scanner and a quite unmissable video of it in action.

[Via Switched]

Continue reading Mice run through Quake, Princeton neuroscientists scan their brains for traces of evil (video)

Filed under: Science

Mice run through Quake, Princeton neuroscientists scan their brains for traces of evil (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 15 Oct 2009 08:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Monkeys and scientists develop persistent "plug and play" control over brain-to-computer interface

While we’ve seen some pretty amazing things so far with computers jacked into human and monkey brains, systems so far have had to be re-learned each session by their subjects. In a new development, researchers at Berkeley have managed to get their monkeys to develop a “memory” for the controls, and recall them instantly each day. To do this, the scientists kept track of specific neurons from day to day — a little tough to do, but obviously worth the hassle. It’s good news for future brain-to-computer interfaces that will enable the disabled and the truly lazy to perform tasks and kick ass through the mere power of thought, but we’re a little afraid of giving these monkeys too much in the way of internet access: the world doesn’t need another 4chan.

Filed under: Robots, Wearables

Monkeys and scientists develop persistent “plug and play” control over brain-to-computer interface originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 25 Jul 2009 16:07:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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