It’s one thing to develop an interface that lets you control slow-moving robots with your thoughts alone, but it’s quite another to let you play pinball that way. But a machine built by researchers at prestigious Technische Universität Berlin in Germany makes just that possible.
Can’t wait to play video games with your braaaaain? Well in “several months” you should be able to purchase the Emotiv EPOC.
We’ve been keeping tabs on the progress of this gadget and we’re excited. I dunno how well the tech will work on a massive scale – what with everybody having different brains and all – but the demo at IDF was pretty cool.
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Scientists in the UK (well, Reading) have developed a robot that has an actual brain. Like, the brain is made out of rat neurons. So already this robot is smarter than Biggs.
The scientists, from the University of Reading, put together the robot so they can better study “how memories are actually stored in a biological brain.” That it may help them study diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s is like bonus points.
The brain communicates with the body via a Bluetooth connection, which must be the best use of Bluetooth yet.
So yeah, a rat brain robot. I’m sorta surprised this wasn’t developed in Japan.
A small device, implanted in the chest, can potentially treat depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder in most patients. The device, produced by Medtronic, prevents recurring feelings of depression or obsession by shocking the brain consistently.
Seventeen patients, diagnosed as having major depressive disorder, were followed for a year and demonstrated overall improvement in mood as well as social and occupational functioning, he said.
The technique, called Deep Brain Stimulation, stimulates the neural circuits which control mood and anxiety.
On What.cd? yesterday, a freeleech torrent was uploaded containing a bunch of I-Doser FLACs. Now, call me ignorant or whatever, but how do I get these things to work reliably? I tried following the directions as best as I could—turn the lights out, relax, have a good pair of headphones, etc.—but I simply couldn’t get anything to happen. I tried the Lucid Dream and Hand of God (in honor of Diego Maradona, of course) and the only thing that “happened” is I got angry at myself for thinking anything would happen.
For the unfamiliar, I-Doser is a program (nothing more than a set of sound files) that use something called binaural sound waves to “trick” your brain into thinking it’s in an altered state like drunk, on DMT, high, etc. It’s harmless.
So if anyone knows how to make these things “work,” whatever that ends up meaning, please let me know.
Getting old sucks, doesn’t it? One of the downfalls is that your brain isn’t quite as sharp as it was five, 10 or 25 years ago. It’s important to exercise the brain to try and combat the effects of old age and hopefully deter diseases linked to growing older such as Alzheimer’s. This is where Happy Neuron’s 25 brain fitness games can keep the five major cognitive brain functions (memory, language, attention, executive functions, visual/spatial) in tip-top shape. You won’t have to go it alone, either.
Each Happy Neuron subscription includes an online coach that manages your personal brain workouts, progression and performance. A monthly subscription is only $9.95 or $99.95 for the year. You can try the games out for seven days for free, too. You’ll thank yourself later because you’ll remember.
Happy Neuron [via Press Release]
Well Friday wasn’t the busiest of news days, but quality over quantity right? These are some of the biggest stories from the day that was yesterday. For now I’m gonna go try to work off this hangover.
Livescience reports that the brain, when waking, will boot up like a computer. Nitric oxide seems to be the “on” switch of the brain, as when the person wakes it triggers certain functions that will set the scene for increasingly complex activities—such as going to the bathroom.
Scientists have found that the thalamus might not be the primitive structure they had previously thought. Before they thought it was simply a gate that opened and shut to allow sensory information to flow through or to bar it, now they believe it has more processing power and can pick and choose who goes through, like a bouncer does at a club. What does this all mean? It’s mostly food for thought, right now anyway, but it may lead scientists to make more advanced discoveries about how the brain functions.
Your Brain Boots Up Like a Computer[livescience]
