Neuroscience

A brain circuit that controls the compulsive drinking of alcohol has been discovered in mice, offering a hope of one day finding a cure for alcoholism in humans. Scientists have long sought to understand why some people are prone to develop drinking problems while others are not. The team's discovery in mice, if translated to humans, may provide doctors a way to reveal whether someone is likely to become a compulsive drinking later in life. Alcoholism is a chronic brain disease in which an individual drinks compulsively -- often accompanied by negative emotions. Whereas previous studies have focused on examining the brain after a drinking disorder develops, the researchers from the Salk Institute in California set out to prove that brain circuits can make some people more likely to be alcoholics.

Elon Musk believes his neural technology company Neuralink will be able to "solve" schizophrenia and autism. Speaking on the Artificial Intelligence podcast with Lex Fridman, published Tuesday, Musk was asked what he thinks are the most exciting impacts he foresees for his company Neuralink. Neuralink's goal is to develop an AI-enabled chip that could be implanted in a person's brain, where it would be able to both record brain activity and potentially stimulate it. "So Neuralink, I think at first will solve a lot of brain-related diseases. So could be anything from like autism, schizophrenia, memory loss -- like everyone experiences memory loss at certain points in age. Parents can't remember their kids' names and that kind of thing," replied Musk.

Elon Musk's Neuralink has been on a hiring spree since summer. Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk doesn't often publicly talk about his low-profile side hustle at biotech startup Neuralink. But when he does, the news is usually far more exiting than any of his updates on electric cars or rockets. In July, Neuralink published a white paper about an implantable brain chip it had been working on, which Musk said would help "merge biological intelligence with machine intelligence." This week, speaking on the Artificial Intelligence podcast hosted by MIT research scientist Lex Fridman, Musk shared a more detailed explanation of how things are unfolding at Neuralink and his ultimate vision for the sci-fi-sounding device that's in the making.

Elon Musk believes his neural technology company Neuralink will be able to "solve" schizophrenia and autism. Speaking on the Artificial Intelligence podcast with Lex Fridman, published Tuesday, Musk was asked what he thinks are the most exciting impacts he foresees for his company Neuralink. Neuralink's goal is to develop an AI-enabled chip that could be implanted in a person's brain, where it would be able to both record brain activity and potentially stimulate it. "So Neuralink, I think at first will solve a lot of brain-related diseases. So could be anything from like autism, schizophrenia, memory loss -- like everyone experiences memory loss at certain points in age. Parents can't remember their kids' names and that kind of thing," replied Musk.

Scientists at the Energy Department's Argonne National Laboratory have pioneered a cutting-edge neuromorphic computer chip--modeled off the brains of bees, fruit flies and other insects--that can rapidly learn, adapt and use substantially less power than its conventional computer chip counterparts. The physicist leading an interdisciplinary team that developed the state-of-the-art design recently spoke to Nextgov about the chips' potential to advance artificial intelligence. "If we start from a biology standpoint, we use ourselves, humans, as a model for intelligent systems, of course. But there are many other branches that evolution has taken where you can sort of reach big computational power," Angel Yanguas-Gil, principal materials scientist in Argonne's Applied Materials division, said. "Insects are one of these areas."

Elon Musk says merging biological intelligence and artificial intelligence is important to help human beings deal with the AI apocalypse. Almost exactly a month ago, Elon Musk introduced a room of engineers and curious consumers to a sci-fi-sounding invention made by his neurotechnology startup Neuralink: an implantable "brain chip" that will "merge biological intelligence with machine intelligence." Per Musk's description, this chip will be installed in a person's brain by drilling a two-millimeter hole in the skull. "The interface to the chip is wireless, so you have no wires poking out of your head," he assured. Musk argued that such devices will help humans deal with the so-called AI apocalypse, a scenario in which artificial intelligence outpaces human intelligence and takes control of the planet away from the human species.

In the quest of the whole-brain connectivity in marmosets, the team found that parts of the primate visual system may work differently than previously thought. Mapping out how distinct types of cells connect can help researchers understand how groups of cells play in concert to relay and process sensory information from the outside environment to the brain. For their research, the team looked at the thalamus, a brain structure located above the brainstem that consists of different nuclei (groups of cells or neurons that are packed together) thought to relay and coordinate sensory information to the cerebral cortex, typically conceived of as the seat of higher cognitive function. Researchers have traditionally categorized different thalamic nuclei as either relay nuclei or association nuclei. The visual thalamus, for example, contains the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN), considered to be a relay of information from the retina to the visual cortex, and the visual pulvinar, which is thought to be responsible for multisensory coordination and attention.

Could this be the start of a new way to fight ageing? A supplement designed to slow the ageing process aims to increase the number of healthy years we enjoy towards the end of our lives. Launched for online sale in the US in July, the pill hasn't been through clinical trials. Instead, it is being marketed direct to the public as a dietary supplement. Its makers claim it is the only scientifically validated anti-ageing supplement on the market.

Whether it is the Irish backstop or English Channel, the issue of how the UK and Europe are controlling their borders has been thrust into the public consciousness. And as with many of the globe's conundrums, countries and private companies are turning to ever more futuristic, and often controversial, technologies in order to protect their borders. There are, of course, immediate issues for Britain's borders with quandaries such as the potential hard border in Northern Ireland following Brexit, with the nebulous'technology' promised by some politicians either still being developed or put under question. One such future proposal is a satellite system that registered mobile phones as they pass the border, while sensors buried in the ground or radars on flying drones could detect possible unlawful breaches of the boundaries. But that would still leave the question of invasive, even if largely invisible, checks that run against the Good Friday Agreement.

This paper suggests a statistical framework for describing the relations between the physical and conceptual entities of a brain-like model. In particular, features and concept instances are put into context. This may help with understanding or implementing a similar model. The paper suggests that features are in fact the wiring. With this idea, the actual length of the connection is important, because it is related to neuron synchronization. The paper then suggests that the concepts are neuron-based and firing neurons are concept instances. Therefore, features become the static framework of the interconnected neural system and concepts are combinations of these, as determined by an external stimulus and the neural associations. Along with this statistical model, it is possible to propose a simplified design for the neuron itself, but based on the idea that it can vary its input and output signals. Some test results also help to support the theory.