MIT’s Technology Review reports on the development of a technique designed to prevent the damage caused by the metals in current neural interfaces, where ‘insertion of the rigid metal electrode into soft tissue triggers a cascade of inflammatory signals, damaging or killing neurons and triggering a scar to form around the metal’ [Technology Review].

“We hope to come up with a way to communicate across the scar layer and send information to and from the device in a way that is as friendly as possible,” says David Martin, a materials scientists at the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor, who is leading the research into the polymer coatings.

Martin and his collaborators coat the electrodes with an electrically conductive polymer originally developed for electronic devices, such as organic LEDs and photovoltaics for solar cells. The polymer coating increases the surface area of the metal-biological interface, which in turn boosts performance of the electrode.

Along with former lab members, Martin founded a company, Massachusetts-based Biotectix, to commercialize the materials developed in his lab. He says that he is already in talks with a cochlear-implant technology company about using his lab’s materials in their devices. [Technology Review]

[Technology Review via Technovelgy]

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BBC News have reported on the imminent commercial release of Emotiv’s neural interface. According to the article,

The Epoc technology can be used to give authentic facial expressions to avatars of gamers in virtual worlds. For example, if the player smiles, winks, grimaces the headset can detect the expression and translate it to the avatar in game. [BBC News]

The article also reported that,

Emotiv is working with IBM to develop the technology for uses in “strategic enterprise business markets and virtual worlds”

Paul Ledak, vice president, IBM Digital Convergence said brain computer interfaces, like the Epoc headset were an important component of the future 3D Internet and the future of virtual communication. [BBC News]

…

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According to the BBC, IBM ’scientists ran a “cortical simulator” that was as big and as complex as half of a mouse brain on the BlueGene L supercomputer’.

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Scientists at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique have published a paper in Nature Neuroscience describing their success in erasing the memories of traumatic incidents in rats without damaging other associated memories. The research is intended to help develop therapeutic regimes for Post Traumatic Stress Disorders. Cordis reports that,

…researchers trained rats to be frightened of two distinct sounds by playing the sounds and then sending an electric shock to their paws. The next day, half the rats received a drug which is known to cause amnesia for events recalled from memory, and the researchers played one of the sounds again.

On the following day, the researchers again played both sounds to all the rats. They found that the animals who had not received the drug were still frightened by both sounds. However, the rats which had received the drug were no longer disturbed by the sound they had heard while drugged. By playing one note and prompting the recall of the electric shock memory while under the influence of the drug, the traumatic memory was erased. However, the memory of the shock associated with the other note remained intact. [Cordis]

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Mason et al. have published a paper describing the mechanisms underlying wandering minds (Science requires authentication but a prepub version is available on PubMed). Their research methodology used ‘thought sampling’ and brain imaging to demonstrate that

…mind-wandering is associated with activity in a default network of cortical regions that are active when the brain is “at rest.” In addition, individuals’ reports of the tendency of their minds to wander were correlated with activity in this network. (Mason et al , 2007:Abstract)

The research investigates the thesis that ‘mind wandering constitutes a psychological baseline from which people depart when attention is required elsewhere and to which they return when tasks no longer require conscious supervision’ (Klinger, 1971; Smallwood & Schooler ,2006; Mason et al., 2007: 393).

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New Scientist has reported that researchers from the Brown University Research Foundation have filed a patent application describing a method for decoding and intepreting activity in the motor cortex. The patent application is available online. The research underlying the patent was published in Nature in July 2006. John Donoghue’s Web site also links to a preprint chapter, “Design Principles of a neuromotor Prosthetic Device” by Donoghue and Serruya.

Hochberg, L.R., Serruya, M.D., Friehs, G.M., Mukand, J.A., Saleh, M., Caplan, A.H., Branner, A., Chen, D., Penn, R.D., Donoghue, J.P. (2006) “Neuronal ensemble control of prosthetic devices by a human with tetraplegia”. Nature 442, pp164-171. doi:10.1038/nature04970

Aaron, R.K., Herr, H.M., Ciombor, D.McK., Hochberg, L.R., Donoghue, J.P., Briant, C.L., Morgan, J.R., Ehrlich, M.G. (2006) “Horizons in Prosthesis Development for the Restoration of Limb Function”. J Am Acad Orthop Surg 14(10) S198-204

[Via New Scientist]

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1. Oxytocin Improves “Mind-Reading” in Humans

Gregor Domes, Markus Heinrichs, Andre Michel, Christopher Berger, Sabine C. Herpetz (2006) ‘Oxytocin Improves “Mind-Reading” in Humans’. Biological Psychiatry 61 (6) pp731-733 doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2006.07.015

Full text here.

[From Brain Ethics via MindHacks]

2. Damage to the prefrontal cortex increases utilitarian moral judgements

Koenigs, M., Young, L., Adolphs, R., Tranel, D., Cushman, F., Hauser, M., Damasio, A. (2007). “Damage to the prefrontal cortex increases utilitarian moral judgements”. Nature, advanced online publication. doi:10.1038/nature05631.

[From Neurophilosophy]

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The neurophilosopher has reported on the release of the emotiv neural interface to software developers and the commercial release of the gtec neural interface.

[Update: Mar 21. Legit Reviews have an article on OCZ Technology’s Neural Impulse Actuator which was demonstrated at CeBIT (from Gizmodo via Core77 Design Blog)]

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Scott Frey (Psychology, Uni Oregon and director of the Lewis Center for Neuroimaging) and research assistant Valerie Gerry published “Modulation of Neural Activity during Observational Learning of Actions and Their Sequential Orders” in the 20 Dec 2006 Journal of Neuroscience (reported in Science Daily). The research aims to throw light on the neurophysiological activity corresponding to learning from observation.

Their paper adds to the growing literature suggesting that the pre-supplementary motor area (pre-SMA) is the seat of intention. Amongst their conclusions, Frey & Gerry suggest that

Whereas the modulatory effects of attempting to learn observationally influence many regions, only activity within the IPS predicts the accuracy with which demonstrated sequences of component actions, or subgoals, are subsequently performed (p.13200).

We conclude that the rostral IPS plays a key role in observational learning of complex action sequences by forming representations of the temporal ordering of component actions that are available to guide subsequent performances of these goal-directed behaviours (p.13200).

Given the role of observational learning in explanations of imitation and social learning this work should make possible some interesting evolutionary explanations of cultural evolution and its precursors.

Frey, Scott H., Gerry, Valerie E. (2006) “Modulation of Neural Activity during Observational Learning of Actions and Their Sequential Orders”. The Journal of Neuroscience. 20 Dec 2006, 25(51) pp13194-13201, doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3914-06.2006 [Online] http://www.ebsco.com/ Accessed: 30 Dec 2006

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A recent paper on responses of psychiatric patients to differing styles of explanation has surmised that biological explanations of metal disorders promote pessimism about the prognoses for the patients when compared to psychological explanations. On reading the paper I was compelled to ask the question: were the subjects given the biological explanations vaguely scientifically literate?

An explanation does its work by providing its audience with the capacity for further, informed, action. Psychological explanations (i.e. folk psychological explanations) are constructed in ordinary language idioms. Biological explanations are constructed in the idioms of specialised areas of knowledge and activity. At first glance a philosopher of science would predict the folk psychological explanations to appear more enabling than the scientific explanations, unless the audience were scientifically literate.

This paper seems to be more a covert test for scientific literacy than a test for the therapeutic effectiveness of scientific explanations. Perhaps the more important hypothesis to test would be whether the biological explanations of mental disorders are more enabling amongst scientifically literate populations than amongst groups for which the scientific explanations might as well be in a foreign language. The paper as it stands actually tells us little about scientific explanation, but it does point out that explanation in terms of the familiar is more enabling than explanation in terms of the unfamiliar.

Ref:

Lam, Danny C.K. & Salkovskis, Paul M. (2007) “An experimental investigation of the impact of biological and psychological causal explanations on anxious and depressed patients’ perception of a person with panic disorder”. Behaviour Research and Therapy. 45 (2) pp405-411 [Online] Available at: http://www.sciencedirect.com (Accessed: 17 Dec 2006)

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