Researcher controls colleague’s motions in 1st human brain-to-brain interface | UW Today

Researcher controls colleague’s motions in 1st human brain-to-brain interface | UW Today: ...Rao sat in his lab wearing a cap with electrodes hooked up to an electroencephalography machine, which reads electrical activity in the brain. Stocco was in his lab across campus wearing a purple swim cap marked with the stimulation site for the transcranial magnetic stimulation coil that was placed directly over his left motor cortex, which controls hand movement...
Rao looked at a computer screen and played a simple video game with his mind. When he was supposed to fire a cannon at a target, he imagined moving his right hand (being careful not to actually move his hand), causing a cursor to hit the “fire” button. Almost instantaneously, Stocco, who wore noise-canceling earbuds and wasn’t looking at a computer screen, involuntarily moved his right index finger to push the space bar on the keyboard in front of him, as if firing the cannon. Stocco compared the feeling of his hand moving involuntarily to that of a nervous tic.

Quantum dots control brain cells for the first time

Quantum dots control brain cells for the first time: First, they cultivated prostate cancer cells on a film covered with quantum dots. The cell membranes of the cancer cells were positioned next to the dots. The team then shone light onto the nanoparticles.

Energy from the light excites electrons within the quantum dot which causes the surrounding area to become negatively charged (see diagram). This caused some of the cancer cells' ion channels, which are mediated by a voltage, to open, allowing ions to rush in or out of the cells...

When Lin's team repeated their experiment with nerve cells, they found that stimulating the quantum dots caused ion channels to open and the nerve cell to fire.

Powerful magnets hamper our ability to lie - life - 06 September 2011 - New Scientist

Powerful magnets hamper our ability to lie: ...researchers asked 16 volunteers to name the colour of a disc on a computer screen after receiving transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to dampen activity in their DLPFC. They were given the option to lie or answer honestly. The task was then repeated following TMS of the parietal cortex - a part of the brain unassociated with cognitive control. The volunteers gave significantly fewer truthful answers after TMS of the left DLPFC - but suppressing the right DLPFC increased the number of true responses ...

New Scientist TV: How a magnet can turn off speech

New Scientist TV: How a magnet can turn off speech: Hold an electromagnet close to your skull and you can enhance or suppress the activity of neurons just beneath it, thanks to a technique called transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). In this video, our brave editor Roger Highfield was zapped by Vincent Walsh from the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at UCL to show how it can turn off speech.

Learn more quickly by transcranial magnetic brain stimulation

Learn more quickly by transcranial magnetic brain stimulation: "The researchers in Bochum have now shown for the first time that an artificial cortex stimulation specifically changes the activity of certain inhibitory nerve cells as a function of the stimulus protocol used. The balanced interaction of excitatory and inhibitory nerve cells is the absolute prerequisite for healthy functioning of the brain. Nerve cells specialised in inhibition of other nerve cells show a much greater variety in terms of cell shape and activity structure than their excitatory counterparts. Amongst other things, they produce various functional proteins in their cell body."

Electrical brain stimulation improves math skills - life - 04 November 2010 - New Scientist

Electrical brain stimulation improves math skills - life - 04 November 2010 - New Scientist: "After each session, which involved hundreds of such calculations, they were given tests to see how well they could perform mathematical calculations using the symbols. Those given tDCS learned the symbols faster and did better in the tests than those subjected to a sham procedure.

When the subjects were tested six months later, those who had been given tDCS still did better than those who hadn't. 'It is already known that tDCS affects neurotransmitters involved in learning, memory and plasticity, so we presume that these are being manipulated in this study to cause long-term changes in the brain,' says Cohen Kadosh."

Sensory hijack: rewiring brains to see with sound - New Scientist - New Scientist

Sensory hijack: rewiring brains to see with sound: ""It turns upside down the way we think about the brain," says Pascual-Leone. Most of us think of our eyes as being like cameras that capture whatever is in front of them and transmit it directly to the brain, he says. But perhaps the brain is just looking for certain kinds of information and will sift through the inputs to find the best match, regardless of which sense it comes from."

Skull electrodes give memory a boost - New Scientist - New Scientist

Skull electrodes give memory a boost: "The technique uses transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), in which weak electrical currents are applied to the scalp using electrodes. ...

Subjects then repeated the experiment 12 times, with one group receiving so-called anodal tDCS (which boosts activity) on their right ATL and cathodal tDCS (which inhibits activity) on their left. A second group received the opposite stimulation and a third group received a placebo treatment, which did not stimulate either side of the brain.

Those in the first group more than doubled their scores after receiving tDCS, experiencing a 110 per cent improvement in visual memory. Participants in the second and third groups showed no overall improvement in performance."

Study Shows Electrical Fields Influence Brain Activity

Study Shows Electrical Fields Influence Brain Activity: McCormick and Flavio Frohlich, a postdoctoral research associate, introduced slow oscillation signals into brain tissue and found that the signal created a sort of feedback loop, with changes in electrical field guiding neural activity, which in turn strengthened the electrical field.

Mysterious ball lightning may be a hallucination

Fluctuating magnetic fields, created by a nearby lightning bolt, could trick the brain into "seeing" round glowing objects, explaining at least some observations of mysterious 'ball lightning'.

Mysterious ball lightning may be a hallucination - physics-math - 17 May 2010 - New Scientist