Seminar Papers

[News] Here's What LSD Does To the Brain

  Lysergic acid diethylamide is illegal drug, because it occurs hallucinations. However, the researchers got special permissions to use it, for a study. They recruited fifteen healthy people with experienced in taking LSD. In the experiment, participants were injected LSD, and taken fMRI. They were asked to answers about their mood. From the result, researchers looked at the brain areas where regarding introspection and sensory areas that receives external information. They found the higher connectivity of the networks between the areas they checked. Also from the another study, the researchers found some brain area activation where were suppressed by perception during normal state.

If you interested in, please click the following link.

http://time.com/lsd_acid_trip_drugs_brain

Competition on Decoding Brain Signal

This competition is sponsored by Microsoft and is based on one of the greatest challenges in neuroscience today – how to interpret brain signals due to millions of people suffer brain-related disorders and injuries and as a result, many face a lifetime of impairment with limited treatment options.  The Grand Prize winner will get $3,000 cash, followed by a 2nd prize of $1,500 cash, and a 3rd prize of $500 cash.

If you are interested in this competition, please read the following link :).

http://gallery.cortanaintelligence.com/Competition/Decoding-Brain-Signals-2

[News] This Factor Is Key to Your Attractiveness

  (CSA Images / Getty Images / Vetta (from Times) / Wired)

  A new study, regarding emotion was published in the journal PNAS. The study was to find a neural link, between understanding others and being attracted to them. The author Silke Anders mentioned that the person, who understood a partner, he might be attracted to the partner. Anders and her colleague studied 90 participants. The participants watched a video clip of women, and judged how the women felt. The researchers used fMRI to measure the participant’s brain activity. Finally, they found the participants, who understood the women more, were more attracted to her. Also,  the researchers found brain reward system activates, when the participants successfully understood the partner.

If you interested in, please click the following link.

News: http://time.com/what_causes_attraction

Paper: http://www.pnas.org/Silke_Anders_PNAS16

[News] 'Lost' memories can be found

(Illustration: Jose-Luis Olivares/MIT)

  The neuroscientists in MIT showed that it is possible to form new memories in early stages of Alzheimer’s of mice. Tonegawa’s lab found cells in hippocampus which store specific memories. From the mice which has impaired memory recall but could forming new memories, researchers tried to find the reason. Therefore, they demonstrated that the engram cells is related to the fearful experience. By using light to stimulate engram cell of mice, they could find that the mice could retrieve the memory.

If you interested in, please click the following link.

http://news.mit.edu/retrieve_missing_memories_early_alzheimers_symptoms

[News] 'AI can solve world's biggest problems' - Google Brain engineer

 ( image captured from CNN Money - ‘Putting a supercomputer into a smartphone’)

Recently, Artificial Intelligence program, which used ‘Deep Learning’ was shown often. Deep learning uses multiple layers called neural networks, and the concepts of deep learning is from the brain. The Google company, trying to develop deep learning. Also they prospect, it could solve many problem as education or climate change.

Regarding Artificial Intelligence, there is a AI program called AlphaGo (developed by Google), which used ‘Deep learning’ for an algorithm. Recently AlphaGo played the board game ‘Go’, with Lee Se-dol who is the world’s top player of it. Surprisingly, the result was 3:1, which 3 wins from AlphaGo, 1 wins from Lee Se-dol. Also, this is not the first game with AlphaGo and human. Apple won many times, on the match against with human. Therefore, from this results, we could see the development of deep learning techniques.

If you interested in, please click the following link.

Google brain engineer: http://money.cnn.com/technology/google_brain_artificial_intelligence

AlphaGo and Lee Se-dol: http://www.nytimes.com/world/asia/human-vs-computer

[News] Watching sensory information translate into behavior

  (Kris Snibbe / Harvard Staff Photographer)

  Vivek Venkatachalam, a postdoctoral and processor Mei Zhen were build the microscope captures 3-D images of all neural activity of worm brains. They were tracked the worm over time during it crawls to figure out where the neurons are in specific volume. Derive from this, Samuel said, it might be possible to monitor all the worms’ neural activity.

If you’re interested with this article, click the following link:

http://news.harvard.edu/watching_sensory_information_translate_into_behavior

[News] New Ways Into the Brain's 'Music Room'

  (Figure: Marcos Chin)

  Since many people prefer to listen to music, some researchers were curious about the music-specific domain in our brain. However, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) showed that the speech and music circuits are in different area of auditory cortex, by using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) device. The researchers played a set of 165 distinctive sound clips for two seconds each, to 10 participants. From the result of computations from fMRI data, six response patterns were found. Four are related to physical properties. Other one is regarding to tracing the perception of speech, and the other one is related to tracing the data turned operatic.

If you’re interested with this article, click the following link:

http://www.nytimes.com/new_ways_into_the_brains_music_room

[News] Diagnosing depression before it starts

  Image: MIT News

  The researchers from MIT and Harvard Medical School studied brain differences in depression with children who have have family history of it. They used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to scan children’s brains. Previous study, regarding depression shows the abnormal activity in subgenual anterior cingulate cortex (sgACC) and the amygdala. In this study, they found strongest links between sgACC and default mode network. Also they found hyperactive connections between the amygdala in high-risk children.

If you’re interested with this article, click the following link:

http://news.mit.edu/2016/diagnosing-depression-earlier-children-0121

[News] Music in the brain

  (Illustration: Christine Daniloff / MIT)

MIT neuroscientists found six neural populations regarding sounds. They are locate in human auditory cortex. Each neural population responds selectively to sounds as music or speech. The researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging  (fMRI) for the study. They scanned the brains of 10 subjects. During the scanning, subjects listen to 165 natural sounds. For the result, they could show six response patterns to explain the response variation.

If you’re interested with this article, click the following link:

http://news.mit.edu/2015/neural-population-music-brain-1216

[News] Computer system passes 'visual Turing test'

  Image: Jose-Luis Olivares/MIT (figures courtesy of the researchers)

 Some researchers from MIT developed a computer system which produce a character with unfamiliar writing system. Also it is indistinguishable with humans. For the computational structure, they are related to probabilistic program. This probabilistic program helps to model the concepts of human acquisition.

If you’re interested with this article, click the following link:

http://news.mit.edu/2015/computer-system-passes-visual-turing-test-1210