Lifeboat Foundation

In an epidsode of the dystopian near-future series, Black Mirror, a small, implantable device behind the ear grants the ability to remember, access, and replay every moment of your life in perfect detail, like a movie right before your eyes.

Theodore Berger, a biomedical engineer at the University of Southern California, can’t promise that level of perfect recall—perhaps for the better—but he is working on a memory prosthesis. The device, surgically implanted directly into the brain, mimics the function of a structure called the hippocampus by electrically stimulating the brain in a particular way to form memories—at least in rats and monkeys. And now, he’s testing one that could work in humans.

Berger’s device hinges on a theory about how the hippocampus transforms short-term memories, like where you deposited your keys, into long-term memories—so you can find them later. In his early experiments, he played a tone and then puffed air in a rabbit’s face, causing it to blink. Eventually, just playing the tone would make the rabbit blink, just like Pavlov’s famous salivating dogs. Berger recorded the hippocampus’ activity with electrodes, and as the rabbits learned to associate the tone with the air puff, patterns in those signals changed in a predictable way.

Continue reading “The Neuroscientist Who’s Building a Better Memory for Humans” »

New research at MIT might be a game-changer for Alzheimer’s. But you don’t have to wait to strengthen your brain’s memory system.

This has been worked on since WWII using various methods that never fully worked out. However, our technology has advance; so it could be within reach this time.

An expert from Rutgers University Newark explores the proper role of neuroscience in defense and war efforts, and how technologies designed with this science can be misused to harm people.

Continue reading “Is BRAIN HACKING the future of war? Experts predict drone control chips, ‘neural dust’ to treat PTSD and remote weapons to disrupt soldier’s thoughts all set to become commonplace” »

What could once only be imagined in science fiction is now increasingly coming to fruition: Drones can be flown by human brains’ thoughts. Pharmaceuticals can help soldiers forget traumatic experiences or produce feelings of trust to encourage confession in interrogation. DARPA-funded research is working on everything from implanting brain chips to “neural dust” in an effort to alleviate the effects of traumatic experience in war. Invisible microwave beams produced by military contractors and tested on U.S. prisoners can produce the sensation of burning at a distance.

What all these techniques and technologies have in common is that they’re recent neuroscientific breakthroughs propelled by military research within a broader context of rapid neuroscientific development, driven by massive government-funded projects in both America and the European Union. Even while much about the brain remains mysterious, this research has contributed to the rapid and startling development of neuroscientific technology.

Continue reading “Neuroscience Is a Tool of War” »

The organization’s largest event dedicated to building BCI prototypes was held in Budapest.

30 November 2016

Wonder if Gates or Musk will do this.

Strategic investment in brain research will help Chinese enterprises push back the frontiers of scientific progress.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=melzXkH8KPY

The Happy Headband. Take my money.

The Fisher Wallace Stimulator® is a wearable neurostimulation device that is cleared by the FDA to treat depression and anxiety. During each 20-minute treatment session, the device gently stimulates the brain to produce serotonin and other neurochemicals that reduce depression and anxiety (and support healthy mood and sleep). The device has been proven to be safe and effective in multiple published studies conducted at top institutions such as Mount Sinai Beth Israel Hospital.

Continue reading “Depression Treatment” »

With wireless optogenetic tools, neuroscientists steer mice around their cages.

Summary: Researchers have discovered a link between nerve clusters in the brain and the amount of force generated by a physical action.

Source: Oxford University.

Researchers have found a link between the activity in nerve clusters in the brain and the amount of force generated in a physical action, opening the way for the development of better devices to assist paralysed patients.