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Better diet and glucose uptake in the brain lead to longer life in fruit flies

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Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have discovered that fruit flies with genetic modifications to enhance glucose uptake have significantly longer lifespans.

Looking at the brain cells of aging flies, they found that better glucose uptake compensates for age-related deterioration in motor functions, and led to longer life.

The effect was more pronounced when coupled with dietary restrictions. This suggests healthier eating plus improved glucose uptake in the brain might lead to enhanced lifespans. [Read more…] about Better diet and glucose uptake in the brain lead to longer life in fruit flies

Artificial Intelligence beats us in chess, but not in memory

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In the last decades, Artificial Intelligence has shown to be very good at achieving exceptional goals in several fields. Chess is one of them: in 1996, for the first time, the computer Deep Blue beat a human player, chess champion Garry Kasparov.

A new piece of research shows now that the brain strategy for storing memories may lead to imperfect memories, but in turn, allows it to store more memories, and with less hassle than AI. The new study, carried out by SISSA scientists in collaboration with Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience & Centre for Neural Computation, Trondheim, Norway, has just been published in Physical Review Letters.

Neural networks, real or artificial, learn by tweaking the connections between neurons. Making them stronger or weaker, some neurons become more active, some less, until a pattern of activity emerges. This pattern is what we call “a memory”. The AI strategy is to use complex long algorithms, which iteratively tune and optimize the connections. [Read more…] about Artificial Intelligence beats us in chess, but not in memory

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    New deep learning models: Fewer neurons, more intelligenceArtificial intelligence has arrived in our everyday lives – from search engines to self-driving cars. This has to do with the enormous computing power that has become available in recent years.  But new results from AI research now show that simpler, smaller neural networks can be used to solve certain…
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What happens when your brain can’t tell which way is up or down?

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What feels like up may actually be some other direction depending on how our brains process our orientation, according to psychology researchers at York University’s Faculty of Health. 

In a new study, researchers at York University’s Centre for Vision Research found that an individual’s interpretation of the direction of gravity can be altered by how their brain responds to visual information.

Laurence Harris, a professor in the Department of Psychology in the Faculty of Health and Meaghan McManus, a graduate student in his lab, found, using virtual reality, that people differ in how much they are influenced by their visual environment. [Read more…] about What happens when your brain can’t tell which way is up or down?

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    Keeping weight off is up to your brain, not just willpower, Ben-Gurion U researchers discoverWhat if an MRI scan could determine whether a weight loss program was likely to be effective? Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) researchers have discovered a neural subnetwork of connected regions between the brain and gastric basal electric frequency that correlates with future weight loss based on connectivity patterns.…
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  • Why some friends make you feel more supported than others
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    Why some friends make you feel more supported than othersIt's good to have friends and family to back you up when you need it – but it's even better if your supporters are close with each other too, a new set of studies suggests. Researchers found that people perceived they had more support from a group of friends or…
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Tracing the many paths of vision

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Retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) are the bottleneck through which all visual impressions flow from the retina to the brain. A team from the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology, University of California Berkeley and Harvard University created a molecular catalog that describes the different types of these neurons. In this way, individual RGC types could be systematically studied and linked to a specific connection, function and behavioral response.

When zebrafish see light, they often swim towards it. Same with prey, although the signals are entirely different. A predator, on the other hand, prompts the fish to escape. That’s good, because a mix-up would have fatal consequences. But how does the brain manage to react to a visual stimulus with the proper behavior?

Optical signals are generated by photons that bombard the retina of the eye. Neurons in the retina collect and process these impressions. While doing so, the retina focuses on the important details: Is there contrast or color? Are there small or large objects? Is something moving? Once these details are filtered out, retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) send them to the brain, where they are translated into a specific behavior. [Read more…] about Tracing the many paths of vision

AI-designed serotonin sensor may help scientists study sleep and mental health

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Serotonin is a neurochemical that plays a critical role in the way the brain controls our thoughts and feelings. For example, many antidepressants are designed to alter serotonin signals sent between neurons.

In an article in Cell, National Institutes of Health-funded researchers described how they used advanced genetic engineering techniques to transform a bacterial protein into a new research tool that may help monitor serotonin transmission with greater fidelity than current methods. Preclinical experiments, primarily in mice, showed that the sensor could detect subtle, real-time changes in brain serotonin levels during sleep, fear, and social interactions, as well as test the effectiveness of new psychoactive drugs.

The study was funded, in part, by the NIH’s Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative which aims to revolutionize our understanding of the brain under healthy and disease conditions. [Read more…] about AI-designed serotonin sensor may help scientists study sleep and mental health

Keeping weight off is up to your brain, not just willpower, Ben-Gurion U researchers discover

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What if an MRI scan could determine whether a weight loss program was likely to be effective? Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) researchers have discovered a neural subnetwork of connected regions between the brain and gastric basal electric frequency that correlates with future weight loss based on connectivity patterns.

BGU’s multidisciplinary team’s findings, published in the journal NeuroImage, support a prevalent neural theory that people with an increased neural response to seeing and smelling food consistently overeat and gain weight. [Read more…] about Keeping weight off is up to your brain, not just willpower, Ben-Gurion U researchers discover

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    Is sitting always bad for your mind? A new study suggests maybe notIt's generally accepted health advice that adults of all ages should sit less, move more, and engage in regular exercise to feel better and reduce the risk of chronic diseases. However, when it comes to the brain and cognition, a new study of older adults from Colorado State University suggests…
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Why writing by hand makes kids smarter

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Professor Audrey van der Meer at NTNU believes that national guidelines should be put into place to ensure that children receive at least a minimum of handwriting training.

Results from several studies have shown that both children and adults learn more and remember better when writing by hand.

Now another study confirms the same: choosing handwriting over keyboard use yields the best learning and memory. [Read more…] about Why writing by hand makes kids smarter

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    Conflicts in kindergarten can reduce children's interest in reading and mathTeacher-perceived conflict predicts lower interest and pre-academic skills in math and literacy among kindergarteners, a new study from Finland shows. Kindergarten represents a crucial context in which children develop school-related skills and patterns of engagement that form the basis for the development of later competencies important for academic success. Kindergarten…
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Touch-and-know: Brain activity during tactile stimuli reveals hand preferences in people

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Have you ever wondered whether the brains of right-handed people work differently from those of left-handers? Is it possible to distinguish between them by observing their brain activity in response to stimuli or tasks?

These are important questions from the perspectives of both basic sciences and application-based fields such as brain-computer interfaces, rehabilitation robotics, and augmented reality.

Since the past few years, a team of scientists at Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology (DGIST), Korea, has been actively conducting fundamental research to answer these questions. [Read more…] about Touch-and-know: Brain activity during tactile stimuli reveals hand preferences in people

The brain can induce diabetes remission in rodents, but how?

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In rodents with type 2 diabetes, a single surgical injection of a protein called fibroblast growth factor 1 can restore blood sugar levels to normal for weeks or months. Yet how this growth factor acts in the brain to generate this lasting benefit has been poorly understood.

Clarifying how this occurs might lead to more effective diabetes treatments that tap into the brain’s inherent potential to ameliorate the condition.

“Until recently, the brain’s ability to normalize elevated blood sugar levels in diabetic animals was unrecognized,” said Dr. Michael Schwartz, professor of medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine and co-director of the UW Medicine Diabetes Institute. [Read more…] about The brain can induce diabetes remission in rodents, but how?

Cloud robotics: Talking cloud and saying nothing

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Cloud robotics are enabling robots to access large amounts of computing power that their bodies do not have the physical space to accommodate. Hundreds if not tens of thousands of servers are potentially at the service of small robots which can be in remote locations well away from the nearest supercomputer or data centre, only being connected by, for example, Wi-Fi or Ethernet.

This allows robots to call on powerful, cloud-based applications, such as speech recognition and language, when they are interacting with their users.

At the moment, most cloud robotics systems are linked to specific robots. So, for example, SoftBank’s Pepper robot is linked to the cloud robotics artificial intelligence system developed by Cocoro, another SoftBank company.

Pepper has about 25 onboard sensors to collect a wide range of information – sight, sound, touch and movement. That covers three of the five senses that human beings generally use, the two missing are taste and smell.

Pepper can be connected to the internet through Wi-Fi or Ethernet, both of which are incorporated into the robot. [Read more…] about Cloud robotics: Talking cloud and saying nothing