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Scientists Discover What You Are Thinking PASADENA, Calif. - By decoding signals coming from neurons, scientists at the California Institute of Technology have confirmed that an area of the brain known as the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vPF) is involved in the planning stages of movement, that instantaneous flicker of time when we contemplate moving a hand or other limb. The work has implications for the development of a neural prosthesis, a brain-machine interface that will give paralyzed people the ability to move and communicate simply by thinking. By piggybacking on therapeutic work being conducted on epileptic patients, Daniel Rizzuto, a...

IN a story by Isaac Asimov, three technocrats are sitting in an underground cavern stuffed with electronics discussing how, with a computer named Multivac, they won the war. The attack had come from an enemy that seemed inscrutable - not Shiite fundamentalists or Al Qaeda terrorists but beings from the star system Deneb, a shining light in the constellation Cygnus, who had threatened Earth with weapons of mass destruction. But the earthlings, relying on the help of an artificial, dispassionate intelligence - this sprawling subterranean computer - had ultimately prevailed. Recent reports that the Pentagon is planning to spend tens...

BRAIN-CONTROLLED PROSTHETICS IN FUTUREFeb 12, 2005 - FreeMarketNews.comby Michael J. RossResearchers are making tremendous progress in developing artificial limbs that can be controlled by the brain activity of people wearing those limbs. These devices utilize what is known as a "brain-computer interface" (BCI), of which there are two varieties: An individual's neuronal activity measurements can be detected using "single-unit recording", in which each electrode is implanted adjacent to an individual brain cell. Alternatively, the brain activity can be measured using electroencephalography (EEG), in which electrodes are attached to the patient's scalp, to measure aggregate signals. It is expected that within...

WHAT'S NEXT In an unusual application of neuroscience research, police agencies around the country may soon be able to equip street corners with microphones and video cameras to fight gun-related crime. The system, based on work by Dr. Theodore Berger, director of the Center for Neural Engineering at the University of Southern California, uses the equipment and a computer to recognize gunshots, pinpoint where they came from and transmit the coordinates to a command center. It relies on software that mimics the way the human brain receives, processes and analyzes sound. The system has drawn the attention of several law...

Monkey mindpower manipulates robotic arm By Robin Lettice Published Thursday 28th October 2004 15:29 GMT  US scientists have taught a monkey to operate a robotic arm to feed itself using only the power of its thoughts.The experiment was revealed Tuesday at a meeting of neuroscientists in San Diego, The Guardian reports, and involves interception of signals from the brain by electrode probes. The signals are interpreted through an algorithm and transmitted to a robotic arm. The robotic arm consists of a mobile shoulder, elbow and gripping device. The onus was on the monkey to learn exactly how to control the...

GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- A University of Florida scientist has grown a living “brain” that can fly a simulated plane, giving scientists a novel way to observe how brain cells function as a network. The “brain” -- a collection of 25,000 living neurons, or nerve cells, taken from a rat’s brain and cultured inside a glass dish -- gives scientists a unique real-time window into the brain at the cellular level. By watching the brain cells interact, scientists hope to understand what causes neural disorders such as epilepsy and to determine noninvasive ways to intervene. As living computers, they may...

People who do not want to wait for old age to shrink their brains and bring on memory loss now have a quicker alternative - abuse methamphetamine for a decade or so and watch the brain cells vanish into the night. The first high-resolution M.R.I. study of methamphetamine addicts shows "a forest fire of brain damage," said Dr. Paul Thompson, an expert on brain mapping at the University of California, Los Angeles. "We expected some brain changes but didn't expect so much tissue to be destroyed." The image, published in the June 30 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience, shows...

The lethal toxins produced by cone snails are in hot demand for neuroscience research, and are being developed as potent drugs. Laura Nelson visits a would-be snail ‘farmer’, for whom milking time is fraught with danger. 24 June 2004 LAURA NELSON This article is from the news section of the journal Nature Marine cone snails are among the most venomous beasts on the planet. © Nature Jon-Paul Bingham fumbles around for a condom. Big Bertha is waiting. There’s an awkward pause. “It has to be the non-lubricated kind,” he says. Bingham rips open the packet and slips the prophylactic over...