THYMOS
A newsletter of research on Consciousness, Mind and Life

by piero scaruffi

Researchers are welcome to submit news and articles about breakthroughs and events in the areas of cognitive science, artificial intelligence, neurobiology, artificial life, linguistics, neural networks, connectionism, cognitive psychology, mind, philosophy, psychology, consciousness. Email the editor at this Email address. Readers who would like to receive periodic news and updates on cognitive science, philosophy of mind, neurobiology, artificial intelligence, etc, are invited to register to my mailing list. My book on consciousness | My reviews of books My seminar on Mind/Consciousness | My seminar on History of Knowledge Click here for the index of all years December 2016 Alcino Silva's team at UC Los Angeles has discovered that the gene "C-C chemokine receptor 5" (CCR5) plays an important role in cognitive life. The role of CCR5 in immunity and in HIV infection has been known for a while (the FDA has approved a CCR5-based treatment for HIV treatment), but now this team has shown that the same gene is responsible for brain functions. In particular, inhibition of CCR5 increases MAPK/CREB signaling, long-term potentiation (LTP), and hippocampus-dependent memory in mice, while too much of CCR5 causes memory deficits (paper). The team of Henry Markram, founding director of the Blue Brain Project at the EPFL in Switzerland used a mathematical technique to model how the brain processes information. The flow of information can be represented with directed graphs, but this flattens the picture of what happens in the brain. While graph theory has been used to analyze network topology, Markram's team collaborated with two mathematicians (Kathryn Hess from EPFL and Ran Levi from Aberdeen University) who employed algebraic topology to analyze those directed graphs, as pioneered by Francesco Vaccarino at the Institute for Scientific Interchange (ISI) in Italy. The result is a representation that shows a multi-dimensional structure. The brain does not think in three dimensions but in as many as eleven dimensions. (Journal of Frontiers in Neuroscience) November 2016 Jeff Anderson at the University of Utah School of Medicine has identified the brain reward circuits that are activated by religious experience and they are the same activated by sex and drugs (announcement) Interview with British psychologist Charles Fernyhough (Durham University) on "inner speech", why we talk to ourselves. A study by Irina Conboy at UC Berkeley seems to show that, contrary to widely publicized theories, young blood does not reverse aging in old mice (Nature Communications paper) David Gurwitz at Tel Aviv University has identified RGS2 (Regulator of Protein Signaling 2) as a possible cause of Alzheimer's disease. This gene codes for a protein that turns off communication among neurons. An Italian team has implemented a living bio-hybrid system by connecting neurons with semiconductor material ("A multidisciplinary approach to study the functional properties of neuron-like cell models constituting a living bio-hybrid system", AIP Advances) Marijuana users age faster (University of Western Australia) October 2016 A good biography of Warren Pitts (Nautilus) A good history of the Theory of Automata (Rutherford Journal) September 2016 Richard Morris, of the Centre for Cognitive and Neural Systems at the University of Edinburgh, showed that the brain is better at memorizing when something has aroused its curiosity: the novelty of surprise triggers the dopamine-driven process that is responsible for memory formation. Quote: "The retention of episodic-like memory is enhanced, in humans and animals, when something novel happens shortly before or after encoding." (paper) Chomsky's theory of language 60 years later (Scientific American) Why "deep learning" neural networks are so good at solving problems? Henry Lin at Harvard University and Max Tegmark at MIT think that deep learning has something profound in common with the nature of our universe. Barbara Maher at Lancaster University has found particles of pollution in the brain of people who lived in Mexico City and Manchester (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) August 2016 String theory is philosophy, not science (Aeon) Benjamin Storm's team at UC Santa Cruz published a study that shows how (the title of the paper) "Using the Internet to access information inflates future use of the Internet to access other information" (in Memory journal). Long-Term Training with a Brain-Machine Interface-Based Gait Protocol Induces Partial Neurological Recovery in Paraplegic Patients according to a study by Miguel Nicolelis' team (Nature) July 2016 Babies that are fed more breast milk in the first 28 days of life develop larger brains and show higher IQs by age 7 according to a study by Mandy Brown Belfort at Brigham and Women's Hospital (Brigham and Women's Hospital) Exercise results in larger brain size and slower cognitive decline according to a study by Zaldy Tan of UCLA (UCLA) June 2016 Antisocial behavior is built in the development of the young brain (Neuroscience News) Permanent damage caused by chronic marijuana use to the brain (Center for Brain Health at the University of Texas at Dallas) (Neuroscience News) May 2016 Steven Piantadosi and Celeste Kidd from Rochester University argue that human brains are so sophisticated because parents need to take care of the most helpless babies in the animal kingdom. Proceedings of the National Academies of Science April 2016 Joe Tsien at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University argues that a simple mathematical logic underlies our complex brain computations in his "Theory of Connectivity" Elizabeth Goldfarb at New York University is studying the collaboration between episodic memories (mediated by the hippocampus) and habitual memories (mediated by the striatum). Scientists warn about the dangers of cannabis (Guardian) March 2016 Jason Gallivan and Randy Flanagan at Queen University in Canada have documented how the brain always prepares multiple movements and then picks only one of them that becomes actual action. Brain damage caused by LSD (Neuroscience News) February 2016 Noriko Osumi has shown that a diet providing a good balance of omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids is important for pregnant women to help brain development of the foetus Marijuana user causes gene mutation (University of Western Australia) January 2016 Memory capacity revised higher (Neuroscience News) Jonathon Crystal at Indiana University has shown that rat memory uses two independent working memories. Chenguang Zheng at University of Texas at Austin discovered that the brain stores information in different ways (using different brain waves) for real-time and later retrieval. Real-time high-resolution information is encoded by high-frequency (short) gamma waves, whereas low-frequency (long) gamma waves are used to retrieve memories of past events. The brain can store more information on these longer waves. The latter allow our brains to play memories in "fast forward" albeit at a lower resolution. Jin Hyung Lee at Stanford University has shown that high and low frequency stimulations create completely different states of mind in rat brain, from awake to unconscious. Those frequency stimulations change the firing rates of neurons in the central thalamus, which normally acts as a relay station between the body and the brain's cortex. Henry Markram at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne created a digital simulation of a piece of the neocortex (31,000 neurons) Click here for 2015 news

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