Next up, predicting human speech with a brain-computer interface.

Brain scan study uncovers why cocaine and methamphetamine may impair moral judgment

The child fails to inhibit the knowledge that the lion is always (so far) in the box on his left. Also his working memory capacity is not great enough to keep in mind the short term information that the lion has this time been placed on the right side and so he relies on the initial association of left side = toy. It's not about distraction or object permanence. It's about poor inhibitory control and working memory which both develop significantly as we get older

Les ressources que notre cerveau alloue au traitement des différents signaux sensoriels ne sont pas figées. Une personne qui devient aveugle compensera en partie la perte de ce sens en développant les autres et notamment le toucher pour la lecture en braille. On a aussi déjà étudié, chez des violonistes, violoncellistes et un guitariste , la place que, dans le cortex somatosensoriel, qui reçoit les informations en provenance de la surface du corps, prenaient les doigts appuyant sur les cordes. La représentation cérébrale de ces doigts, très sollicités pour des tâches requérant vitesse et précision, était nettement plus importante que chez des non-musiciens. Mais ce qui est vrai chez un groupe d'experts ayant, le plus souvent, commencé l'apprentissage de l'instrument au cours de l'enfance l'est-il aussi dans la population générale avec un outil découvert plus tard ?

Non, les gauchers n’ont pas le cerveau à l'envers des droitiers ! À l’occasion de la Semaine du cerveau, le point sur ce que l’imagerie cérébrale révèle, ou dément, sur les asymétries du cerveau.

Où l’on découvre que le message inlassablement répété par Catherine Vidal n'est pas conforme à l'état de la science.

Les sexagénaires, septuagénaires et octogénaires en bonne forme physique et amateurs d'activités sportives régulières protègent leur cerveau des lésions dues à l'âge. Ainsi, la mémoire, le langage ou encore l'apprentissage sont chez eux des fonctions cognitives moins dégradées que chez des individus moins actifs.

Ah…Quelle douce nostalgie de cette période où la presse interprétait mal une information… En fait, ce qu’on voulait dire, c’est que le cerveau n’utilise que 10% de ses capacités à un moment donné.* heureusement, maintenant ça n’arrive plus et les journalistes ne sont pas à la recherche d’un titre accrocheur…

Comme tous les matins, l'enseignante doit faire l'appel. Mais à sa grande surprise, la liste de présence dont elle se sert tous les jours est couverte de signes mystérieux auxquels elle ne comprend goutte. Ainsi qu'elle se le rappelle, la feuille "aurait pu aussi bien être couverte de hiéroglyphes". Les notes qu'elle a préparées pour faire sa classe s'avèrent elles aussi incompréhensibles...

"Research out of the University of Philadelphia concludes there are major differences in the neural pathways in the brains of men and women. Men, they say, are wired more front-to-back, women more side-to-side. 'The results establish that male brains are optimized for intrahemispheric and female brains for interhemispheric communication. The developmental trajectories of males and females separate at a young age, demonstrating wide differences during adolescence and adulthood. The observations suggest that male brains are structured to facilitate connectivity between perception and coordinated action, whereas female brains are designed to facilitate communication between analytical and intuitive processing modes.' They propose this may explain why women have been found to be better multitaskers. Of course, this may also have ramifications for what skill and career proclivities each sex exhibits."

It's that time of year again: The pumpkins are carved, the costumes are all laid out with care, and taking candy from strangers is not only allowed, it's encouraged. But, with all the focus on the tastebuds, just what happens in your brain when you're eating candy?

It’s hard to imagine an encryption machine more sophisticated than the human brain. This three-pound blob of tissue holds an estimated 86 billion neurons, cells that rapidly fire electrical pulses in split-second response to whatever stimuli our bodies encounter in the external environment. Each neuron, in turn, has thousands of spindly branches that reach out to nodes, called synapses, which transmit those electrical messages to other cells. Somehow the brain interprets this impossibly noisy code, allowing us to effectively respond to an ever-changing world.

If you consider yourself to be a born morning person or an inveterate night owl, there is new research that supports your desire to wake up early or stay up late. Each of us has a personal “chronotype,” or unique circadian rhythm, says Till Roenneberg, a professor of chronobiology at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich and one of the world’s experts on sleep. In broad strokes, these chronotypes are usually characterized as early, intermediate or late, corresponding to people who voluntarily go to bed and wake early, at a moderate hour or vampirishly late. If you are forced to wake up earlier than your body naturally would, you suffer from what Roenneberg calls “social jet lag.”

"Every night since humans first evolved, we have made what might be considered a baffling, dangerous mistake. Despite the once-prevalent threat of being eaten by predators, and the loss of valuable time for gathering food, accumulating wealth, or having sex, we go to sleep. Scientists have long speculated and argued about why we devote roughly a third of our lives to sleep, but with little concrete data to support any particular theory. Now, new evidence (abstract, full text paywalled) has refreshed a long-held hypothesis: During sleep, the brain cleans itself." During sleep, the Cerebrospinal fluid fills channels in the brain, collecting waste products. It uses a lot of energy, leading to the hypothesis that the brain can't clean up waste while also processing sensory input.

In November of last year, Jan Scheuermann did something she never thought she would do again: She fed herself a piece of chocolate. For the last decade Scheuermann, 54, has been a prisoner in her own body. She suffers from a mysterious degenerative disorder that attacks the nervous system, severing the connections between the brain and muscles. Now a quadriplegic, Scheuermann has no movement below her neck. She can’t move her limbs, let alone grasp, move, or hold anything. Until she’s hooked up to a brain-computer interface (BCI).

Une machine capable de lire et d'enregistrer vos pensées, pour les diffuser ou pour les conserver par-delà votre mort... cela vous attire ? Ou bien, cela vous fait peur ?

En conclusion, les interfaces cerveau-ordinateur existent bel et bien, et constituent en effet une petite révolution scientifique très prometteuse. Elles sont par contre bien incapables de lire dans les pensées, et encore moins de sauvegarder numériquement le cerveau de quelqu'un.